Storytelling for Lawyers

Chapter 1 - Introduction
I. Lawyers are Storytellers
II. Legal Arguments are Stories in Disguise
III. The Parts of a Story
IV. Movies and Closing Arguments
Chapter 2 - Plotting I: The Basics
I. What is Plot?
II. Plot Structure in Two Movies
Chapter 3 - Plotting II: Plot Structure in a Closing Argument to a Jury in a
Complex Torts Case
I. The <"Back Story>"
II. Annotated Excerpts from Spence's Closing Argument on Behalf of Karen
Silkwood
III. Concluding Observations
Chapter 4 - Character Lessons: Character, Character Development, and
Characterization
I. Introduction: Why Emphasize Movie Characters in Legal Storytelling?
II. What is Character, and Why Is It Important to Legal Storytellers?
III. Flat and Round Characters and Static and Changing
Characters-High Noon Revisited
IV. Techniques of Character Development and Characterization-Excerpts
from Tobias Wolff's This Boy's Life
Chapter 5 - Characters, Character Development, and Characterization in a
Closing Argument to a Jury in a Complex Criminal Case
I. The <"Back Story>"
II. Excerpts from the Opening: Act I-<"The Setup>" and <"Confrontation>"
III. Concluding Observations
Chapter 6 - Style Matters: How to Use Voice, Point of View, Details and
Images, Rhythms of Language, Scene and Summary, and Quotations and
Transcripts in Effective Legal Storytelling
I. Back Story: Grading Law School Examinations
II. Preliminary Note: <"Voice>" and <"Style>"
III. Voice and Rhythm: <"Staying on the Surface>"
IV. The Use of Scene and Summary: <"Showing and Telling>"
V. Telling in Different Voices
VI. Perspective or Point of View
VII. Several Functions of Perspective: How Does Perspective (Point of View)
Work, and What Work Does it Do?
VIII. Concluding Observations
Chapter 7 - A Sense of Place: Settings, Descriptions and Environments
I. Introduction
II. Dangerous Territory: Contrasting Settings Evoking Danger and Instability in
Joan Didion's <"The White Album>" and the Judicial Opinion in a Rape Case
III. More Dangerous Places Where Bad Things Happen: Use of Physical
Descriptions and Factual Details to Create Complex Environments in W.G.
Sebald's The Emigrants and the Petitioners' Briefs in Two Coerced Confession
Cases
IV. Settings and Environment as Villains and Villainy in the Mitigation Stories
of Kathryn Harrison's While They Slept and the Petitioner's Brief in
Eddings v. Oklahoma
V. Concluding Observations
Chapter 8 - Narrative Time: A Brief Exploration
I. Introduction
II. The Ordering of Discourse Time
III. Concluding Observations
Chapter 9 - Final Observations: Beginnings and Endings