Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
- Discipline
- Institution
- Publication Type
Articles 1 - 3 of 3
Full-Text Articles in Law
Iceberg Ethos: Credibility And Hemingway In Predictive Legal Writing, Brad Desnoyer
Iceberg Ethos: Credibility And Hemingway In Predictive Legal Writing, Brad Desnoyer
Faculty Works
In predictive legal writing, credibility is not inferred from conclusions alone. It is constructed sentence by sentence. Analytic correctness is necessary, but it is not sufficient. Supervising attorneys read prose as evidence of intellectual control, treating disciplined style as proof of substantive mastery. Yet legal writing scholarship has largely framed clarity as a matter of pedagogy or professionalism rather than as a structural theory of ethos.
This article reframes predictive writing as institutional rhetoric. Within the hierarchical environment of law practice, cognitive fluency governs professional trust: writing that is easy to process yet disciplined in reasoning reads as competence. Drawing …
Practical Truth: The Value Of Apparent Honesty In Supreme Court Opinions, Timothy C. Macdonnell
Practical Truth: The Value Of Apparent Honesty In Supreme Court Opinions, Timothy C. Macdonnell
Catholic University Law Review
The focus of this Essay is on the importance that apparent honesty has on the persuasive force of Supreme Court opinions. Legal scholars and Supreme Court Justices have observed the connection between the Court’s legitimacy and the persuasive force of its opinions. Because the Court’s opinions are both an exercise of the Court’s power and the justification for that power, the Justices’ opinions must be persuasive.
The study of rhetoric has long recognized three methods of persuading an audience of the correctness of a particular view. Those methods are appeals to logic, credibility, and emotion. Of theses three methods, I …
Practical Truth: The Value Of Apparent Honesty In Supreme Court Opinions, Timothy C. Macdonnell
Practical Truth: The Value Of Apparent Honesty In Supreme Court Opinions, Timothy C. Macdonnell
Scholarly Articles
Judicial honesty or judicial candor is the subject of significant scholarly attention, but it is not the focus of this Essay. Rather, the author's focus is on the importance that appearing honest has on the persuasive force of an opinion and the dangers associated with failing to achieve that goal. This distinction is not intended to suggest Justices should seek apparent honesty while not being actually honest. Rather, this Essay emphasizes that actually honest opinions must also be apparently honest. Thus, judicial candor is necessary to apparent honesty, but it is not always sufficient on its own.
To support the …