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Full-Text Articles in Law
Democratizing The Courts: How An Amicus Brief Helped Organize The Asian American Community To Support Marriage Equality, Robert S. Chang, Karin Wang
Democratizing The Courts: How An Amicus Brief Helped Organize The Asian American Community To Support Marriage Equality, Robert S. Chang, Karin Wang
Faculty Articles
In this essay, the authors offer an alternative rationale for amicus practice. This rationale emerges from thier experience working on a brief in support of marriage equality that sixty-three Asian American organizations endorsed. They found that an amicus brief can be an effective tool to engage and educate community-based organizations and their constituencies, thereby helping to advance social justice issues. Their story also illustrates how amicus practice can be used to organize communities around a legal issue and to democratize the courts. In this way, even if the effect of amicus briefs on litigation outcomes may be marginal, the process …
Sharing Stories: Narrative Lawyering In Bench Trials, Paul Holland
Sharing Stories: Narrative Lawyering In Bench Trials, Paul Holland
Faculty Articles
Narrative lawyering theorists have demonstrated the ways in which the dynamics of stories affect the way lawyers deliver and jurors receive messages within trial. However, relatively little attention has been paid to the distinctive ways in which stories are developed in bench trials. Examining three roughly contemporaneous bench trials, this Article illuminates how this trial format requires lawyers to be both performers and audience, alternating roles frequently, sometimes within the span of a breath or a gesture. The availability of feedback to the lawyer and the possibility of direct intervention by the fact-finder produce a stark contrast to what lawyers …