Law Commons^™

Speaking Of Stories And Law, Linda H. Edwards

Scholarly Works

A recurring question in narrative scholarship has been the relationship of narrative to law. Most narrative scholars agree that stories are central to law. As Stephen Paskey recently pointed out, stories are more than a tool for persuasion. They are embedded in law’s very structure. But how does that work? Are rules just stories articulated in a different form?

We have barely begun to explore narrative’s roles, but it is already clear that, in the words of Meryl Streep, “it’s complicated.” A conceptual map of what we’ve learned so far can help us unpack the complexity. Otherwise we may run …

Alternative Conceptions Of Legal Rhetoric: Open Hand, Closed Fist, Linda L. Berger

Scholarly Works

An open-handed image of rhetoric presents an argument against the closed fist of logic and the “nasty, brutish, and short” depictions associated with legal rhetoric. In 1985, Robert Cover laid bare the field of pain and death where legal interpretation plays itself out in human consequences. Five years later, Gerald Wetlaufer described a landscape of brutal certainty as the backdrop for much of legal rhetoric. And the arena of criminal trials has long been recognizable as a bleak setting within which “[j]ustice determines blame and administers pain in a contest between the offender and the state . . .”

My …