How to Read Like a (Good) Lawyer: A Brief Guide for Non-Lawyers

The 3 stages and 5 tips for reading like a lawyer

Photo by Iñaki del Olmo on Unsplash

I’ll never forget the first judicial opinion I read in law school and how I felt after reading it.

I was completely lost.

The assigned reading was for my first-year contracts class, and as far as I could tell, the case was about a contract, some land, and what should happen after one side didn’t do what they promised they’d do.

I read it quickly and thought, What the hell am I supposed to take away from this?

So I read it again, this time slower. But still, nothing.

On the second read-through, I began taking extensive notes on every detail. By the end of my third reading, 70% of the text was highlighted in bright yellow. The margins were littered with question marks.

What was the point of this case? What was I missing? I didn’t have any clear idea of what mattered. Maybe everything?

Before going to law school, I heard many times that law school doesn’t teach you the law — it teaches you “how to think like a lawyer.” That’s absolutely true.

And in the process of changing how I think, it completely transformed how I read.

The bewilderment I felt on day one soon gave way to understanding. I did quite well in law school and have gone on to a successful career. I am now an appellate attorney where my job is to persuade judges on a higher court that the first judge got it wrong and they should reverse the decision and send the case back down to start over.

Most people imagine lawyers standing up in court, shouting “objection!”, pounding counsel’s table, and striding back and forth in front of a jury. That’s not what I do. My day-to-day is filled with lots of reading (and after that, lots of writing).

Reading like a Lawyer

Judges are not easily convinced that their colleagues on the bench got it wrong. Meanwhile, the opposing side is marshaling every argument, legal opinion, statute, or other authority they can find to defend the first judge’s decision. The chances of winning this kind of appeal are slim.

Despite the enormous odds against me, I win most of the time.

How do I manage that? Luck? Uncommon brilliance? There is occasionally some of the first, and I’d like to think a lot of the latter. But I’m not the next Jeffrey Fisher or Elizabeth Prelogar (not even close).

All things considered, I win because I’m pretty good at what I do, and a big part of what I do is a particular kind of reading.¹

Let me explain.

Every win starts many months before with research — i.e., reading! Lots and lots of reading. But the type of reading I do throughout the process changes, moving through three different stages and then sometimes looping back.

I’ll explain these three stages and then share suggestions on how non-lawyers can use these skills in their own reading.