An inference form of logical necessity works well in litigation. It is enough for the judge or jury to think about the acceptability of your premises. Asking them to also work to make sense of your reasoning can actually be too much of a cognitive load. And adding on the challenge of an unfamiliar visual language can make them down right rebellious.

This is one reason why the transitivity of essential predication (e.g., “is said of”) works so well. While a general form of transitivity (e.g., aRb and bRc, so aRb) can be fallacious, the transitivity of essential predication form is not. And any form of inference, in my experience, can be translated into such a form.

Just be sure you don’t confuse any transitive relation with the transitivity of essential predication. For example, consider the following argument:

It can be risky to rely on this form of inference since it depends on the transitivity of the relationship. Here it works only because “taller than” is transitive.

However, this next form of inference (e.g., transitivity of essential predication} always is valid regardless of the relation. So be sure to keep the distinction clear in your mind.