Unlocking the Secrets of Legal Genius: Measuring Specialist Legal Expertise Through Think-Aloud Verbal Protocol Analysis

Most of us have heard the phrase “To think like a lawyer.” But not many people really know how lawyers think. Even fewer know how expert lawyers think. Yet the tools needed to discover how lawyers assess legal risk and solve legal problems have been around for years. They’ve just never been adapted for this purpose ... until now. This book outlines an empirically-proven approach to investigating the unique characteristics of legal thinking – particularly the thinking of legal experts – through the use of experimental methods and techniques from the field of cognitive science. It describes in detail the processes of identifying appropriately qualified test subjects, ranking them according to their levels of likely expertise, engaging them with specially designed problem-based tests, and then analysing the resulting qualitative and quantitative data to identify distinguishing cognitive traits and behaviours.The findings presented by the author have the potential to materially improve the assessment methods used in lawyer accreditation schemes, change how clients assess the expertise of their legal advisers, increase the effectiveness of recruitment and in-house training programs within law firms, and lead to new approaches for the design and delivery of post-graduate education at law schools.