Paper 1: Argument Paper
There are too many lawyers

William E. Foster wrote this article entitled “There are Not Too Many lawyers.” It is an interesting piece, sharing a lot of information. The author pointed to all the benefits that can arise from being an attorney, while underlying several other important factors. He also tried to bring up few points to reinforce his statement. He argued that attorneys have deep working knowledge of the legal system, are skilled specialists and bring a noble value to society. The author focused solely on the abilities of attorneys in general without considering any counterclaim facts. Essential mistakes were made throughout his argument, such as poor formation of paragraphs, use of fallacies, lack of credible sources, absence of counterclaims and conclusion. Although the author may have presented crucial information, after a thorough analysis of the entire argument, the bad points prevailed over the good ones; hence, this argument is weak.
A strong argument requires a good structure such as: a clear thesis statement, supporting facts, credible sources, counterclaims, coherence in paragraphs, a good structure, excellent grammar, good use of punctuation, clear introduction, body and conclusion, etc… The writer hardly satisfied any of these attributes. First, he included a thesis statement: “Although of the criticism of the present legal education environment are valid, I disagree that law schools are graduating too many JD’s.” (Paragraph 1). The goal of a thesis statement is to summarize the main point of the paper and state why the essay is important and worth reading. Not analyzing the quality of the thesis statement itself, the mere fact he had included one gave some strength to the structure of the argument. Secondly, he wrote great concluding sentences at the end of some of the paragraphs. In Paragraph 4, the author concluded with this sentence: “There are not too many skilled individuals.” He wrapped up what he discussed to this paragraph in this sentence. Concluding sentences can certainly be beneficial to the readers as long they are not restating the related topic sentences. Thirdly, the author supported his information by providing relevant details and explanations. In paragraph 7, he stated that attorneys can lift significant burdens off of their clients. More importantly, he further explained how, in the next sentence: “Skilled advocates give the assurance that someone has the client’s best interests in the forefront of their minds – that someone is anticipating what could go wrong with a transaction or how the client might be exposed to those who are opportunistic or parasitic.” He provided ample explanations of his argument.
In contrast, the author weakened his argument with major mistakes. First, to reiterate, he included a thesis statement but it was too wordy. The thesis statement has a dual importance; there must be a thesis statement and it must satisfy its purpose. As a result, the thesis statement did not attain its purpose because it was not clear enough to the readers and did not summarize the entire article.
Secondly, there is no introduction of the bullet points. Bullets points should be introduced, not just randomly spread apart. They should at least show signs of continuity. However, it is not the case here. To the respect of coherence, a bullet point statement should not be divided into 2 different paragraphs. As an example, the author talked about attorney fees in paragraph 6 and continued the same argument in paragraph 7 while ending it with an unrelated topic as attorneys being great advocates. The thoughts are not fully gathered. This ultimately leads to poor formation of paragraphs, and consequently creates confusion. Thirdly, the author provides tons of information, nonetheless no supporting credible source to support the statements. When providing information, especially data, authors must cite the source of the information. The author stated in paragraph 5:” In Kansas, where I teach, around 400 attorneys typically are sworn-in each year to service a state of 2.9 million inhabitants.” This is a handful of information but we do not know where it comes from as the author failed to inform us of the source. Consequently, although the data could be accurate, we can only conclude that in this case, this is simply his opinion. While it is great to have evidence and supporting information, it is bad not to have or cite the source.
Additionally, the author used a fallacy, Non Sequitur. This fallacy is when the logic does not follow. It is an argument whose cause and effect relationship is not logical. The author stated: “Chances are, if you live in a city that doesn’t sit on a coast or have “icago” in its name, there are fewer than a handful of attorneys who can expertly navigate the acquisition of a mid-sized operating business, defend a Title VII employment action, prosecute a patent, or craft a charitable remainder trust.” (Paragraph 4). The mere fact of the “icago” in a city’s name or being seated on a cost is totally irrelevant to draw such conclusion. It is undeniably illogical.
Lastly, in any strong argument, counterarguments should be discussed and a conclusion must be in place. In this article, the author did not present any counterarguments nor did he provide a conclusion. The author only discussed reasons pertaining to “There are Not Too many Lawyers”, without considering the other side of the argument. The end of this article was deficient. There was no conclusion and worse of all, there was no concluding sentences tying back to the thesis statement in the last paragraph. On the whole, the author had a wordy thesis statement, great concluding sentences and a lot of information in an attempt to satisfy his claim. These constitute the strengths of his argument. In contrast , his article lacked an introduction of the bullet points, had a poor formation of paragraphs, no credible sources, used fallacies, no counterarguments, and no conclusion. These attributes weakened his arguments. Overall, it is clear that this argument had more weak points than strong points; therefore, this argument is weak.