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When The Story Is Too Good To Be True: A Lawyer's Role In Resisting The Lure Of Narrative, Jeanne Kaiser, Scott Brown
When The Story Is Too Good To Be True: A Lawyer's Role In Resisting The Lure Of Narrative, Jeanne Kaiser, Scott Brown
Faculty Scholarship
Storytelling is important in legal persuasion. The power of a good story is why an attorney strives to mold the facts of a case into a tale with clear heroes and villains. High profile bullying stories and the reaction to those stories by prosecutors, legislators, and the legal academy provide examples of lawyers’ susceptibility to the power of an emotional narrative. This Article explores how social problems, like those relating to Phoebe Prince, Tyler Clementi, and Meagan Meiers, are likely to seem more real and pressing when presented in human terms as opposed to the abstract consequences.
Where Truth And The Story Collide: What Legal Writers Can Learn From The Experience Of Non-Fiction Writers About The Limits Of Storytelling, Jeanne Kaiser
Faculty Scholarship
This Chapter examines what can be gained and what can be lost by using storytelling in legal writing. After reviewing some basic principles of legal storytelling, the Chapter reviews some lessons that can be learned from the experience of the New Journalists who adopted literary techniques in their non-fiction work. In the end, the Author concludes that while there is much value in using the tools of fiction in legal writing, it is only with a blend of narrative and analysis that we most successfully do our jobs as lawyers.