Problem Solving, Decision Making, and Professional Judgment: A Guide for Lawyers and Policymakers

Problem Solving, Decision Making, and Professional Judgment: A Guide for Lawyers and Policymakers will prepare students and professionals for their roles as creative problem solvers. Paul Brest and Linda Hamilton Krieger discuss essential qualities of practical wisdom that are important across disciplines and essential to one's everyday life as a decisionmaker, consumer, and citizen. This book can stand alone as a text or work as a supplement to a core law or public policy curriculum. Professor Brest and Professor Krieger aim to prepare students to exercise problem solving and decision making skills in the complex social environments in which they will work. They include bodies of knowledge drawn from statistics, decision science, social and cognitive psychology, and "judgment and decision making" (JDM) psychological literature. They combine quantitative approaches to empirical analysis and decisionmaking (statistics and decision science) with the psychological literature that demonstrates the systematic errors of the intuitive and social empiricist or decisionmaker. Their ultimate goal is to help readers "get it right" in their roles as professionals, citizens, and individuals.

Table of Contents:
PART ONE INTRODUCTION TO PROBLEM SOLVING AND DECISIONMAKING Chapter 0. Preface Chapter 1. The Lawyer and Policymaker as Problem solver and Decisionmaker: The Roles of Deliberation, Intuition, and Expertise Chapter 2. Framing Problems and Identifying Objectives And Identifying Problem Causes Chapter 3. Generating Alternatives: Creativity in Legal and Policy Problem Solving Chapter 4. Choosing Among Alternatives PART TWO Making Sense of an Uncertain World Introduction to Part Two Chapter 5. Introduction to Statistics and Probability Chapter 6. Scores, Dollars, and Other Quantitative Variables Chapter 7. Interpreting Statistical Results Chapter 8. Explaining and predicting one-time events Chapter 9. Biases in Perception and Memory Chapter 10. Biases in Processing and Judging Information Chapter 11. The Social Perceiver: Processes and Problems in Social Cognition PART THREE MAKING DECISIONS Introduction to Part Three Chapter 12. Choices, Consequences, and Tradeoffs Chapter 13. Complexities of Decisionmaking: Relationships to our Future Selves Chapter 14. Complexities of Decisionmaking: The Power of Frames Chapter 15. Decisionmaking Under risk Chapter 16. The Role of Affect in Risky Decisions Conclusion to Part Three Part Four Influencing Decisions Introduction to Part Four Chapter 17: Social Influence Chapter 18: Influencing Behavior Through Cognition Chapter 19. Group Decisionmaking Chapter 20. Conclusion: Learning from Experience

About the Author :
Paul Brest is professor emeritus and former Dean of the Stanford Law School. He is President of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. He teaches a graduate course on Judgment and Decision Making at Stanford University. Linda Hamilton Krieger is a Professor of Law and Director of the Ulu Lehua Scholars Program at the William S. Richardson School of Law in Honolulu, Hawai'i and is a Senior Research Fellow at the Center for the Study of Law and Society at the University of California, Berkeley.

Review :
"Brest and Krieger fill a huge vacuum. Their book is likely to transform the curricula of law schools and public policy schools by providing an excellent text for courses that systematically analyze the crucially important, but hitherto largely neglected, processes by which lawyers and policymakers exercise their judgment. Their multidisciplinary approach is ambitious and rigorous yet clear and accessible." -- Richard L. Revesz Dean and Lawrence King Professor of Law, New York University School of Law "Brest and Krieger pull off quite a trick here. The book is at once lucid, practical, and intellectually deep. The authors demonstrate admirable sophistication in interpreting the seminal psychological findings, as well as the rational choice inference and decision making models. At the same time, they repeatedly demonstrate how professionals might really improve how they do their work." --Mark G. Kelman James C. Gaither Professor of Law and Vice Dean, Stanford Law School "Brest and Krieger have written a book of extraordinary scope and depth. Practical examples effectively motivate the material, and the exposition is always clear and extremely insightful. There is much to learn from reading this book. I am eager to use it in my own undergraduate course." --Barry Schwartz Dorwin Cartwright Professor of Social Theory and Social Action, Swarthmore College "Brest and Krieger provide a holistic process for making effective decisions as problem-solving lawyers and policymakers. This textbook is groundbreaking in its breadth, depth, and versatility. There is nothing comparable for teaching students about the theoretical and practical dimensions of decision making. It is a brilliant tour de force." --Mark Neal Aaronson Professor of Law, University of California, Hastings College of the Law "This book employs a much needed academic and non-skills approach to illuminate lawyers' work and thinking. The multi-disciplinary methodology enriches our understanding of interviewing, counseling, and negotiation and brings to the fore the decisions some lawyers make unconsciously. It does this by examining lawyers' tasks from a rational and empirical basis and grounding them in a larger context. Those interested in clinical teaching will appreciate this supplement to their pedagogy." --Kandis Scott Professor of Law, Santa Clara Law "This book presents an excellent and comprehensive analysis of how we solve problems and make decisions in legal matters. It is a great tool for teaching novice legal decision makers about these critical skills because it breaks down the process into several easily understood but helpful steps. It also is an engaging resource for experienced practitioners and policy makers because it explores the behavioral aspects and systematic biases that underlie our decision making processes. It is a great book for any law student or lawyer who wants to improve her problem solving skills and make better decisions." -- Kenneth R. Margolis Professor of Law, Director of the CaseArc Integrated Lawyering Skills Program, Case Western Reserve University School of Law "Brest and Krieger offer a thorough and insightful integration of the field of decision making and the legal context. This work offers the necessary overview of behavioral decision research and behavioral economics for legal scholars, and wisdom for any lawyer who wants to make better decisions." --Max H. Bazerman, Jesse Isidor Straus Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School "This book has the rare combination of being accessible to people without any experience in the field, while still being interesting and useful to experts. The authors have done a wonderful job of being both engaging and clear while maintaining rigor, accuracy, and thoroughness. This is an authoritative source for policy makers who want to create psychologically informed policy. I will most certainly be adopting it for courses I teach on the interplay between psychology and public affairs." -- Daniel M. Oppenheimer, Associate Professor of Psychology and Public Affairs, Princeton University "This book is not only the most comprehensive text yet written in the field of judgment and decision making. It is an impressive and beautifully organized compilation of the knowledge and insight created during a half-century of research. It will educate veteran researchers as well as students and anyone making important decisions." --Paul Slovic, President, Decision Research