Legal reasoning is an activity to determine whether a legal event has fully met the legal provisions and legal rules relating to the legal event. Judges use legal reasoning when taking considerations in connection with the case to be decided. Legal practitioners use legal reasoning to find the basis for legal actions with the aim of avoiding legal violations in the future and as material for argumentation if a legal case or legal action occurs.

Giving a legal opinion is a special skill of legal experts. A legal opinion is a document that provides professional opinion by the giver to the recipient of the legal opinion regarding how the legal provisions apply to resolve the legal problem submitted by the recipient of the legal opinion. Legal opinions, although made by those who are legal experts, are not legal decisions that have authoritative power. The opinion depends on whether the judge follows it or not when the recipient of the legal opinion brings the legal opinion to resolve his case in court.

This legal opinion is indeed intended to provide information to clients who want to know everything related to the problems they face. However, a legal opinion is not enough to only state the substantive aspects of all the provisions requested by the client, but also explain the structural aspects of which institutions are related to the client's problem and the implementation of these laws and regulations in life practice. Thus, logic and legal argumentation are needed in the systematic preparation of a legal opinion in order to develop comprehensive legal thinking.

Understanding of the law is not limited to laws and regulations, but also comes from court decisions and opinions of previous legal practitioners. This is to avoid inconsistencies between one law and regulation and another, both vertically and horizontally in the preparation of a legal opinion.

References

Efendi, A’an, and Dyah Ochtorina Susanti. Logika dan Argumentasi Hukum [Logic and Legal Argumentation]. Jakarta: Kencana, 2020.
Faishal Muttaqin, Edy. “Argumentasi Hukum: Perspektif Ilmu Hukum dan Hukum Islam” [Legal Argumentation: A Perspective of Legal Science and Islamic Law]. Jurnal Madania 2, no. 2 (2012).
Ruslan. H.R. “Argumentasi Hukum Sebagai Strategi Hakim dalam Berpendapat” [Legal Argumentation as a Judge's Strategy in Giving Opinions]. Bengkulu, 2012.
Utami, Tri Rahayu, and Aditya Yuli Sulistyawan. “Urgensi Penalaran dalam Argumentasi Hukum Guna Mengembangkan Pemikiran Hukum yang Komprehensif” [The Urgency of Reasoning in Legal Argumentation to Develop Comprehensive Legal Thinking] Vol. 01, no. 01 (2019): 8.

This article represents the personal opinion of the writer and does not represent the views of the editorial team. Legal Literacy Indonesia.