[MUSIC] Congratulations for making it through these lectures. You've now had an introduction to some central concepts. As you encounter these concepts again, and again in Law School. You'll naturally become more adept at manipulating them. But having an initial understanding is very likely to help you digest the rules that you encounter in your class materials. Of course, there's some arbitrariness in what gets included and excluded in any attempt at defining a canon of foundational concepts. Bob Dylan wrote the song, A Hard Rain Is Going To Fall, during the midst of the 1962 Cuba missile crisis, and said that its lyrics were the initial lines of all the songs quote, he thought he would never have time to write, unquote. In this postscript, I'm gonna mention five more tools that I didn't have time to include. More information about them is just a web search away. So first, flow charts. Flow charts lay out the disjunctive, conjunctive elements of a cause of action. Rule 403, probity versus prejudice. This rule tells you, it's a rule of evidence that tells you that there's a basic tension between some pieces of evidence that are both relevant and provide probative evidence, but also might prejudice the jury. I think of as a canonical example, a bloody photograph. The next rule I didn't really have time to talk about is Men's Rea. The states of mind are very important to several areas of law. If you innocently misrepresent something, you're not a liar. And the categories of Mens Rea include willful, wanting, malicious, intentional, gross negligence, negligence and non-negligent. But for versus Proximate cause. X is a but for cause of Y if Y would not have happened if X had not happened. But there's also this concept of proximate cause, it's something need not be just a but for cause in order for there to be legal liability. You also have to have it, something close in the causal change. So my parents conceiving of me was a but for cause of me giving these lectures, but it's not approximate cause. The next tool I really couldn't talk about is arguing the alternative, and here its a very lawyer-ly task way of thinking. If you're accused of murder. You might respond, I didn't do it, but if I did I was drunk. And if I wasn't drunk, it was in self-defense. Arguing in the alternative. Rhetorical advices. These like the cannons of interpretation often have fancy Latin names. It turns out that Ward Farnsworth has a great book on these two. You can at least decorate your conversations about when you can recognize that somebody is using a particular rhetorical device. And once you know them, it's easier for you to deploy them yourself in your writing and in your oral advocacy. I wish I'd had time to teach you about some specific rhetorical devices. Like the canons of interpretation, rhetorical devices often have fancy Latin names. It turns out that Ward Farnsworth has a great book on these too. If you learn a few of the core devices, it will allow you to first of all recognize when someone is using them in their argumentation. But also gives you a greater capacity to deploy them in your own writing and your own oral advocacy. So, there are of course many, many more tools. But having this introduction to the 30 or more rules that we've already gone over, you're in a much better place to go out and start learning them yourself. Thanks for sticking it out with me. [MUSIC]
