About This Course
Statutes are directly or indirectly involved in most litigated cases, yet very little attention is ever paid to the dozens of rules of statutory interpretation that can make or break your case. Judges appreciate statutory interpretation analysis from litigants. You should be the one to provide it. The rules of statutory interpretation are fairly straight forward. This course will show you that these rules are much easier than the multitude of Latin phrases associated with them would otherwise lead you to believe.
This course covers the basic framework used by state and federal courts to interpret statutes (and regulations). It describes the “fork in the road” of statutory interpretation: “plain meaning” or “ambiguity” and the rules that apply to each fork. Then some of the most common canons of statutory interpretation are described. And the course even uses stop lights and tequila to illustrate these rules.