Law

== Legal methods ==
There are distinguished methods of legal reasoning (applying the law) and methods of interpreting (construing) the law. The former are [[legal syllogism]], which holds sway in civil law legal systems, [[analogy]], which is present in common law legal systems, especially in the US, and argumentative theories that occur in both systems. The latter are different rules (directives) of legal interpretation such as directives of linguistic interpretation, teleological interpretation or systemic interpretation as well as more specific rules, for instance, [[golden rule]] or [[mischief rule]]. There are also many other arguments and cannons of interpretation which altogether make [[statutory interpretation]] possible.

Law professor and former [[United States Attorney General]] [[Edward H. Levi]] noted that the "basic pattern of legal reasoning is reasoning by example"—that is, reasoning by comparing outcomes in cases resolving similar legal questions.<ref>Edward H. Levi, ''An Introduction to Legal Reasoning'' (2013), p. 1-2.</ref> In a U.S. Supreme Court case regarding procedural efforts taken by a debt collection company to avoid errors, Justice [[Sonia Sotomayor|Sotomayor]] cautioned that "legal reasoning is not a mechanical or strictly linear process".<ref>''[[Jerman v. Carlisle]]'', 130 S.Ct. 1605, 1614, 559 U.S. 573, 587 (2010), [[Sonia Sotomayor|Sotomayor]], J.</ref>

[[Jurimetrics]] is the formal application of quantitative methods, especially [[Probability theory|probability]] and [[statistics]], to legal questions. The use of statistical methods in court cases and law review articles has grown massively in importance in the last few decades.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Heise|first=Michael|date=1999|title=The Importance of Being Empirical|url=https://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1445&context=plr|journal=Pepperdine Law Review|volume=26|issue=4|pages=807–834|access-date=18 December 2019|archive-date=25 February 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210225055124/https://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1445&context=plr|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://ericposner.com/the-rise-of-statistics-in-law/|title=The rise of statistics in law|last=Posner|first=Eric|date=2015-07-24|website=ERIC POSNER|language=en-US|access-date=2019-08-16|archive-date=20 December 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191220060506/http://ericposner.com/the-rise-of-statistics-in-law/|url-status=live}}</ref>