Legal Storytelling In the Law School Curriculum

Judith Beverly Moran, University of Baltimore School of Law, has published Course on Storytelling in volume 49 of the University of San Francisco Law Review (2015). Here is the abstract.

The law and literature movement has a long and distinguished history and has spawned many strands since its origins in the eighteenth century. Most recently, legal storytelling has realized a prominent position in law school pedagogy; it is seen as a way to teach law students effective strategies for client advocacy. Storytelling acumen enables lawyers to present their clients’ circumstances to legal decision makers in ways that can facilitate favorable outcomes. What is less well-settled is how best to teach storytelling skills in law school. Some scholars are proponents of a theoretical approach — teaching students narrative theory and the rudiments of literary criticism — while others prefer practical methods founded in clinical courses. This article proposes a two-pronged approach to teach storytelling in a family law context utilizing both theory and practice. It features critical analysis of literary texts to expose persuasive narrative techniques and writing exercises designed to help students apply them to lawyering.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.