Although coherence has become one of the key concepts in contemporary legal theory, its meaning is taken almost universally to be elusive, complex and controversial. However, these difficulties are due just to the failure of commentators to distinguish the intension of the notion from other features of its (many) referents in extension. The oversight has caused qualities to be ascribed routinely to coherence that properly attach to various object(s) of which coherence is predicated, and which a theorist happens to have in mind when bringing coherence into view. This conceptual error has significance for the substance of present claims made for the use of the notion in law. Freed from the entanglement, coherence emerges thinner and fitter, better able to be deployed with confidence in legal application.

Though considerable claims are made for the use of coherence in law, its meaning is routinely taken to be elusive, controversial or even mystical. Some argue that defining coherence is logically impossible. This is surprising at best, and at worst should prompt serious alarm. It is generally agreed, at least, that consistency provides one necessary condition for coherence, though the list of additional elements required is keenly disputed. I pitch the dispute further back, and argue that the agreed-upon relation with consistency is unsustainable and damaging, and arises only because of a striking methodological oversight. This oversight accounts for and resolves the perceived impossibility and complexity of coherence. Freed from consistency, I argue for coherence just as 'sticking together', and close by considering the implications of my analysis for writing that presently presses coherence into legal service.

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