[pmarreck]

I don't agree that outright lying is tolerated, but one thing I was very disappointed to learn after independently learning about most of the informal logical fallacies is that lawyers do not avoid them. In fact, they use them to win cases.

This is tantamount to, but NOT equivalent to, "lying" in my book. Some of the most famous defenses in history, such as Cochran's "if it doesn't fit, you must acquit" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NH-VuP_5cA4 were fundamentally, fallacious appeals in nature.

Hugely disappointing to me. Would love for a lawyer to chime in on this.

If I could come up with any defense of this practice at all, I'd say that if you took my reasoning to its logical extreme, then the persuasive personality of an attorney themselves could be considered a fallacy, and that would be an unreasonable expectation to satisfy the elimination of. You could also argue that if 2 opposing lawyers are both permitted to make fallacious appeals that wouldn't be called out by judges or jury, then in theory they'd mostly cancel each other out. Maybe.

[anonymouskimmer]

NAL. But that's partly why the opposing counsel exists - to point these fallacies out to the jury. Make the other side look untrustworthy.