Chaim Perelman talking about how justice is the first goal, and adherence to legal technicalities is the second goal

In his chapter of "Self-Deliberating" from _The New Rhetoric_ with Olbrechts-Tyteca, page 43, he writes:

"It is a common, and not necessarily regrettable, occurrence even for a magistrate who knows the law to formulate his judgment in two steps: the conclusions are first inspired by what conforms most closely with his sense of justice, the technical motivation being added later. Must we conclude in this case that the decision was made without any preceding deliberation? Not at all, as the pros and cons may have been weighed with the greatest care, though not within the frame of considerations based on legal technicalities. Strictly legal reasons are adduced only for the purpose of justifying the decision to another audience. they are not adduced, as Mill suggests in his example for the purpose of making an expert formulation of the general maxims of which the governor had only a vague idea. Mill's scientism makes him think of everything in terms of a single audience, the universal audience, and prevents him from providing an adequate explanation for the phenomenon."

This passage reiterates what I found in my study as far as writers working towards justice in their composing decisions without necessarily referencing legal technicalities. Later, rationales or understandings emerged in order to fit the end decision into whatever the law provides. The sense of justice comes first, then the understanding of the law is fit into that by the writer. So whatever the law actually is, if we were ever able to know that, is fairly irrelevant. Instead, what matters is how the law is enacted, and it is enacted backwards from what one might expect. Those who compose laws doubtfully intend for individuals to just ignore them. You see how agency issues crop up in that the law as written has little agency.

As for legal reasoning, the way Perelman describes the magistrate's two step process also fits within our understandings of good lawyering, at least at the reactive stage rather than the planning stage. If a crime has been committed, the lawyer has to squeeze the law to fit the facts in the best way possible in order to argue his client's innocence. That's his job - in order to be "just" in the US legal system. On the other hand, lawyers who are advising clients *before* the possible crime will read across legal precedents and then extract a course of action that hopefully avoids the crime in the first place.