When my first novel hit bookstores, there was one question my lawyer friends couldn’t help but ask: “Are you going to keep practicing law?” I told them I loved being a lawyer and saw no reason to quit, to which the typical response was something along the lines of “Gee, I’m really sorry, I hope your next book does better.”
My decision to teach law more than 40 years ago has had the single biggest impact on my professional development. I made the move after working as a public defender in Seattle and as an assistant attorney general. I wanted to deepen my trial skills and thought teaching could help me.
Lawyers all over the world struggle with storytelling. To become better storytellers, lawyers need to leave the insulated world of legal practitioners and study what makes other professional storytellers—like novelists, journalists, advertisers and filmmakers—effective.
By diminishing law students’ belief in the power of storytelling, we rob them of the creativity and legal imagination crucial for effective lawyering, writes Philip N. Meyer, a professor at Vermont Law School and the author of Storytelling for Lawyers.
The film Adaptation, directed by Spike Jonze and written by Charlie Kaufman, is particularly relevant for lawyers struggling with telling stories effectively both inside and outside the courtroom.
All lawyers are storytellers. And Supreme Court justices are not exceptions. Outcomes in constitutional law are typically predicated upon the stories the justices tell—interpretations of foundational “origin stories”—that shape understandings of the law and who we are as a people, writes Philip N. Meyer.
Steve Jobs understood the power of great storytelling. And lawyers’ cases, like Jobs’ beloved products, are the embodiments of stories we tell others and ourselves as well. How can we tell those stories better?
Litigation unfolds upon a stage in the theater of the courtroom. And while combative, compulsive and closed litigation stories are constrained and shaped by evidentiary and legal rules and the meticulous presentation of factual evidence, lawyers are nevertheless the producers, directors and set designers of their own theatrical courtroom dramas.
Being a good judge can be lonely and emotionally excruciating. In the remarkable book Tough Cases, 13 trial judges candidly recount their most difficult cases.
For me, the most important law songs, the ones that are closest to my heart, are often not about lawyers at all but instead about themes of justice and injustice. The most remarkable of these songs are by our two greatest folk poets: Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan.
With winter’s chill now in full force, I recall sitting in a beach chair in late August on a spit of sand on the rocky Maine coast reading Walter Isaacson’s…
Jan 1, 2019 2:20 AM CST
“Lady with an Ermine,” circa 1490 by Leonardo da Vinci, is a portrait of Cecilia Gallerani, mistress of the Duke of Milan. Photo by Art Media/Print Collector/Getty Images
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Jerome Bruner, who died in 2016 at the age of 100, was one of most influential psychologists and interdisciplinary thinkers of the 20th century. Late in his career, Bruner became fascinated with the law. Trial lawyers employ the power of storytelling to, in Bruner’s words, go beyond the information given.
An appellate prosecutor and a president show how precise timing and use of prolonged silences can enhance presentations and give arguments greater impact.
Jul 1, 2018 1:25 AM CDT
Former President Barack Obama took inspiration from Martin Luther King Jr. and Abraham Lincoln during his 2015 eulogy for nine victims of a church shooting. Photograph by AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster.
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Civil rights attorney, writer and law professor Bryan Stevenson, author of the best-selling Just Mercy, employs well-told stories to reveal the plight of people trapped in the criminal justice system.
The ABA Journal wants to host and facilitate conversations among lawyers about their profession. We are now accepting thoughtful, non-promotional articles and commentary by unpaid contributors.
“Lady with an Ermine,” circa 1490 by Leonardo da Vinci, is a portrait of Cecilia Gallerani, mistress of the Duke of Milan. Photo by Art Media/Print Collector/Getty Images
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Former President Barack Obama took inspiration from Martin Luther King Jr. and Abraham Lincoln during his 2015 eulogy for nine victims of a church shooting. Photograph by AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster.
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