The ''If'' and ''Then'' to Rattle Your Brain

To begin with, I passed law school ages back, and the teachers I had were extremely conservative, proud, and dignified. They were very serious about instilling reverence towards the practice of law, and did it to an extent bordering on mysticism. It was made clear to our minds that there were so many things mystic about law and the application of law that only the greatest minds could hope at navigating through that sea of knowledge. For, average brains like my own and most of my classmates, we could only hope to enter the mazes of law at our peril, for mastering law was beyond us.

I remember that on one distinct occasion, I challenged one of my teachers and told him that law is simple enough, for it is meant for the common person and cannot be as complex as he portrayed it. I was reminded very politely that if I was intelligent enough to form a proper opinion I would be studying at Harvard or some top law school and not be a student in that class. When I told him that the same logic applied to his level of intelligence, and he would not be teaching where he was, if..., I was reported to the Dean for insulting a teacher and disrupting discipline.


Well, that was not my end of law school, but it was the beginning of real self-study. I stopped relying on teachers except where they were really good professional people, and began trying to understand the law by myself.

Soon, it was evident that a lot of the mysticism of law really came from using foreign and dead terms like stare decisis and ratio decidendi, which were meant to wrap simple concepts in shrouds of unfathomable mystery. When it came to understanding law and applying it, it was in fact close to basic software programming. However, the application was still complex enough to require a human brain in most cases.

Talking about the ''if'' and ''then'' of law, learning law really means learning the ''if'' and ''then'' rules both from statutes and past judgments and sort and find the rules that are applicable to an instant case. Once that is done, most of the problem is solved. If grey areas that cannot be solved by the application of past judgments and statutes remain, then they become a ''question of law'' for higher courts, or are to be judged upon the principles of justice, equity, and good conscience.

Real problem solving in law starts with finding what is so lovingly called the ratio decidendi by legal mystics, and what would be called an ''if'' and ''then'' rule by a software programmer. The art of finding the ratio is to find the minimum unitary rules embodied in a judgment, where each rule provides that under a single given condition, ''if'' a certain event happens, ''then'' a defined consequence will take place. Any judgment can contain either a single or multiple ratios. Not all of the ratios in a judgment may be applicable to your case. But that is a different story.

Let's consider a hypothetical case and its judgment:

''Jane had built a high boundary wall around her premises. She lived in the country, and not under any urban authority, which had rules on the heights of boundary walls. She thought she could do what she pleased. She did not think of asking anybody, or for her neighbor's permission.

Her new wall, blocked out the sunlight from her neighbor's single storied bungalow, which was built close to the common boundary. The neighbor sued for easement and ancient rights of being able to enjoy light. The court ruled in favor of Jane's neighbor and ordered her to destroy the wall up to a certain height that would not cause injury to her neighbor, and also ordered compensation.''

So, the ratio prima facie here is simply: ''If you build a construction that deprives your neighbor from enjoying light without his/her consent, then the neighbor can recover costs and compensation for injury and also have you remove the construction.''

Simply put, this can be the basis of an absolute rule that says, ''You cannot build a construction that blocks light from your neighbor's premises.'' However, it was Jane's mistake that she did not ask for consent of her neighbor. If consent of her neighbor had been obtained in this case, either as a favor or for money before raising the construction, then the neighbor would not have had any cause of action.

So, actually in this case there are two ratios:
 

1. ''If you build a construction that blocks light from your neighbor's premises, then the neighbor has a cause of action against you.''
2. ''If you obtain the consent of your neighbor before building a construction that blocks light from your neighbor's premises, then your neighbor cannot have any cause of action against you.''

Which of these ratios is applicable to a case you are handling depends upon the facts and circumstances of that case.

So, learning and applying law boils down just to extensive study and research, and finding judgments and statutes that provide the ''if'' and ''then'' rules applicable to a case. These ''if'' and ''then'' rules are not always spelt out, and you have to find them within judgments and statutes and extract them properly. This job is called finding the ratio. It is hard work, but not as difficult as people like to imagine. The ratio of this article is, ''if'' you can learn how to find the ratio decidendi, ''then'' you will certainly become a good lawyer.

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