The law school experience is so focused on reading and interpreting appellate cases that students sometimes overlook the central role that legislation plays in practice. The reading and interpretation strategies in this series of episodes pertains to many kinds of enacted law (or requirements with the force of enacted law), such as statutes, regulations, ordinances, and municipal law. For ease of reference, however, I will refer to the coaching strategies in this series as reading and interpreting statutes.

Celebrity chef Guy Fieri has said:

There are two different things: there’s grilling, and there’s barbecue.  Grilling is when people say, ‘We’re going to turn up the heat, make it really hot and sear a steak, sear a burger, cook a chicken.’  Barbecue is going low and slow.

So today, our work of reading and interpreting statutes continues. After the first step—slowing down—the next step is to determine how the statute fits into the big picture. As you learned with case reading, background knowledge, even if acquired just prior to reading the text, makes you a better, more efficient reader. To put the statute in context, take the time to look at the table of contents. Look at the surrounding sections to see how the statute fits into the big picture.

We are continuing our discussion of reading and interpreting statutes. To recap the steps we have covered thus far, when approaching a statute, you must: …

Today, we are picking up our ongoing discussion of reading and interpreting statutes. We will discuss the final step in this episode, which is to resolve ambiguities or to add clarity to vague language.

In this episode, we will be focusing on steps 1 and 2 of reading and interpreting statutes, which we know are to:  slow down (step 1) and determine how the statute fits into the big picture by looking at surrounding statutory materials (step 2).

We are going to pick up where we left off in the last episode, where a commercial airline pilot named Sean Fitzgerald showed up for work “rip-roaring drunk” and engaged in pre-flight work before he was arrested.  The statute he is alleged to have violated is 18 U.S.C. § 343, and we are now at step 3, which requires us to look at the language of the statute itself and methodically break it down.

Today, we are going to pick up where we left off in the last episode, where commercial airline pilot Sean Fitzgerald showed up for work “rip-roaring drunk” and engaged in pre-flight work before he was arrested.  The statute he is alleged to have violated is 18 U.S.C. § 343, and we are now at step 4, which requires us to look for the statute’s meaning using the text and determine if the language is ambiguous or vague.