The document outlines several forms of legal reasoning used in legal analysis, including rule-based reasoning, analogical reasoning, policy-based reasoning, principle-based reasoning, custom-based reasoning, inferential reasoning, and narrative. Each form has a distinct purpose and persuasive power in justifying legal results and analyzing facts and rules of law. A complete legal analysis will incorporate multiple forms of reasoning appropriate to the issue.

1. FORMS OF LEGAL
REASONING
LR & W 2023

2. FORMS OF LEGAL REASONING
 Rule-based reasoning
 Analogical reasoning
 Policy –based reasoning
 Custom- based reasoning
 Principle-based reasoning
 Inferential reasoning
 Narrative

3. RULE – BASED REASONING
 Reasoning by relying on a statement of the law- a statute or a common law rule
articulated in a case.
 Rule- based reasoning is the starting point for legal analysis.
 It asserts: X is the answer because the principle of law articulated by the governing
authorities mandates it.”
 i.e Juma Ali should not be bound by the contract he signed because he is a minor,
and A v B establishes that minors do not have the capacity to execute binding
contracts.

4. RULED – BASED REASONING
Eg : “The only lawful means to dispossess a tenant who has not abandoned nor
voluntarily surrendered… is by resort to the judicial process… Applying this principle
to the factos of theis case, we conclude, as did the trial court, that because Kamau
failed to resort to judicial remedies against Wanjiku… his lockout of Wanjiku was
wrongful as a matter of law.” Wanjiku v Kamau 2 EALR xxx

5. ANALOGICAL REASONING
 Reasoning by comparing the facts of earlier cases to the acts of the present case.
 The typical variety of analogical reasoning justifies a result by making direct factual
comparisons between the facts of prior cases and the facts of the client’s situation.
 The comparison can demonstrate factual similarities- leading to a similar result
 Or Factual differences- leading to a different result.
 ie “X is the answer because the facts of this case are just like the facts of A v B, and X
was the result there.”
 Comparing cases to point our similarities is often called “analogizing cases”.

6. ANALOGICAL REASONING
Similarities
 Ilustration: Juma Ali should not be bound by the contract he signed because, like
the defendant in A v B, he is only sixteen, and in A v B the defendant was not
bound by the contract that she signed.
 A comparision that points out differences asserts that, “Even though X was the
answer in A v B, that is not the appropriate answer here because the facts in this
case are different from the facts in A v B.
 Comparing cases to point out differences is often called “distinguishing” cases.

7. ANALOGICAL REASONING
Differences
 In C v D, the minor was bound by his contract. However, Juma Ali’s situation is
unlike the the situation in C v D because there the defendant had signed a
statement asserting that he was nineteen, thus deliberately misrepresenting his
age. Juma Ali, however, never made any statement about his age. Therefore, the
result in C v D does not control Juma’s case.

8. POLICY- BASED REASONING
 Policy vased reasoning justifies a result by analyzing which answer would be the
best for society at large. It asserts, “X is the answer because that answer will
encourage desirable results for our society and discourage undesirable results.
 E.g Juma Ali should not be bound by the contract he signed because he is sixteen,
and people that young should be protected from the harmful consequences of
making important decisions before they are mature enough to consider all the
options. Further, contract defaults are likely when minors undertake contractual
obligations, and contract defaults dampen economic growth and decrease
productivity levels.

9. PRINCIPLE BASED REASONING
 Principle – based reasoning justifies a result by appealing to a broad principle or
character trait valued by our society. Such as a principle or morality, justice,
fairness, or democracy.
 It asserts that, “X is the answer because that answer upholds notions of morality,
justice, fair-play, equality, democracy, or personal freedom.”
 E.g Juma Ali should not be bound by the contract he signed because enforcing
contracts like these would encourage sales agents to lie and would reward unfair
and dishonest sales practices.
 E.g “A succession of trespasses …should not …be allowed to defeat the record
title…. The squatter should not be able to profit by his trespass.”

10. CUSTOM- BASED REASONING
 Custom based reasoning justifies a result by reliance on cultural and societal
norms of behavior.
 Asserts- “ X is the answer because that result is consistent with what we expect of
people in this society.”
 Custom –based arguments are often phrased as statements about what is and is
not “reasonable” .
 Some lega rules directly incorporate custom-based reasoning as part of the
operative legal standard e,g the negligence standard (“The reasonable person”); or
the rules that protect people from “undue” influence.

11. CUSTOM –BASED REASONING
 Juma Ali should not be bound by the contract he signed because it is
unreasonable to expect a minor to be able to match wits with an experienced and
overreaching sales agent. In our society, people do not make contracts with
minors; they deal with the minor’s parents or guardian.
 Example of custom-based reasoning: “There is no…reason to deny plaintiff relief
for failing to discover a state of affairs which the most prudent purchaser would
not be expected to even contemplate.”

12. INFERENTIAL REASONING
 Lawyers often use inferential reasoning (abduction) when analsying a set of facts to
decide whether those facts meet the requirements of a rule of law.
 If a particular factual conclusion would be consistent with the available evidence, that
consistency provides some reason to believe that the factual conclusion is true.
 E.g A patient had normal blood pressure during all prior phases of treatment, then the
doctor changed one of his medications. Immediately after taking the first dose, the
patient developed high blood pressure. No other changes to treatment or lifestyle
occurred.
 One could infer from this set of facts that the new medication caused the high blood
pressure.

13. INFERENTIAL REASONING
 lnferential reasoning is important in analyzing many legal issues. It is especially important when
the legal rule calls for a conclusion that cannot be directly observed- e.g questions of causation,
knowledge (whether a person was aware of a certain fact or situation), or motive or intent
(whether a person intended to cause a certain result).
 Inferential reasoning – used to establish whether the sales agent knew or should have known that
Juma Ali was a minor.
Juma Ali is a short, smooth-faced boy who looks and acts like the sixteen year old he is. He told the
agent about his hopes to be selected next year for the high school cheerleading squad. That hope
would make no sense if he were already a senior, the year most students turn eighteen. He said that he
never dreamt that he would have a car sooner than any of his friends, a puzzling comment for an
eighteen year old to make because many high school students have a car shortly after turning sixteen.
Most telling of all, the sales agent asked to see Juma Ali’s driver’s license to make a copy of it for the
dealership files. Under these circumstances, the sales agent surely either knew or suspected that Juma
Ali was a minor.

14. NARRATIVE
 Narrative justifies a result by telling a story whose theme implicitly calls for that result.
 Narrative uses the components of a story (characterization, context, description,
dialogue, theme and perspective) to appeal to commonly shared notions of justice,
mercy, fairness, reasonableness, and empathy.
 Narrative is closely related to both principle based reasoning and custom –based
reasoning , but narrative is far more contextual, placing these other forms of reasoning
in a specific situation.ily
 The governing rule might directly adopt a legal standard easily communicated as a
narrative theme. Eg Assume that the applicable rule about the enforcement of
contracts made by minors allowed enforcement only if the other party to the contract
did not use “undue” influence to convince the minor to enter into the contract.

15. NARRATIVE
 Narrative would use story telling techniques such as description, dialogue, characterization,
perspective and context to establish that the other party’s conduct was or was not “undue”.
Narrative( where the use of undue influence is an issue in the governing rule) Juma Ali should not be
bound by the contract he signed because Musa, a car dealer for twenty years-discouraged him from
calling his parents to ask for advise and told him that another purchaser was looking at that very car at
that very moment. Musa lowered his voice and said, “Tell you what I’ll do. I’ll knock off 100,000/- just
for you- just because it is your first car. But you can’t tell anyone how low I went. This will have to be
our secret.”
 A narrative demonstrating the fairness of a particular result can convince a judge to exercise any
available discretion in favour of the client, to create an exception to a general rule, or to re-
interpret or overturn the rule.
 The law is not insensitive to justice, mercy, fairness, reasonableness and empathy, even when those
commonly shared values are not incorporated in the legal rule.

16. LEGAL REASONING- CONCLUSIONS
 Each form of reasoning has persuasive power, and each has particular functions in
written legal analysis.
 Rule-based reasoning establishes the structure of the analysis and organizes the
written discussion,
 Within that structure, a complete analysis includes reasoning based on applicable
rules, analogies, policies, principles, norms, factual inferences and narrative.
 In addition to it’s role in the written legal analysis, narrative is paramount in the
written fact statement.