All Articles tagged persuasion

• Articles
  February 15, 2024 EDT
  What Social Science Can Teach Us Regarding Briefing
  Morgan L.W. HazeltonRachael K. Hinkle

  Using quantitative studies, legal writers can move beyond hunches to understand the most effective advocacy tools.

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• Articles
  February 15, 2024 EDT
  Writing Like a Photographer Thinks: Using Ansel Adams’s Composition Principles to Write More Effective Persuasive Introductions and Conclusions
  Bret Rappaport

  Roadmap introductions and summary conclusions detract from persuasiveness and waste time. Write like a photographer thinks instead.

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• Articles
  April 15, 2021 EDT
  Precedent as Rational Persuasion
  Brian N. Larson

  How do lawyers and judges use cited cases in their legal arguments?

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• Articles
  March 01, 2020 EDT
  “Liven Their Life Up Just a Little Bit”:* Good Pacing Persuades Judges
  Julie A. Oseid

  Pacing is a critical component of great fiction writing, but it is rarely mentioned in legal writing. This article suggests that pacing is a critical tool for legal writing.

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• Articles
  March 01, 2019 EDT
  An Exaggerated Demise: The Endurance of Formalism in Legal Rhetoric in the Face of Neuroscience
  Adam G. Todd

  Many scholars have stated that formalism is dead. However, formalism is alive and well and living in legal rhetoric.

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• Articles
  March 01, 2019 EDT
  The Architecture of Drama: How Lawyers Can Use Screenwriting Techniques to Tell More Compelling Stories
  Teresa M. Bruce

  Hollywood writers have a secret. They can tell a compelling story—so compelling that top-grossing motion pictures rake in millions of dollars. How do they do it?

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• Essays
  March 01, 2018 EDT
  What We Still Don’t Know About What Persuades Judges – And Some Ways We Might Find Out
  Ted Becker

  I’ve become less and less certain about how solid the foundation is for at least some of the techniques we encourage students to use.

• Book Reviews
  March 01, 2018 EDT
  Book Review: Legal Persuasion: A Rhetorical Approach to the Science Linda L. Berger and Kathryn M. Stanchi, Routledge 2017, 170 Pages
  Lori D. JohnsonSarah Morath

  A review of Legal Persuasion: A Rhetorical Approach to the Science

• Articles
  March 01, 2018 EDT
  Words Count: The Empirical Relationship Between Brief Writing and Summary Judgment Success
  Shaun B. SpencerAdam Feldman

  Are lawyers more likely to prevail when they file more readable summary judgment briefs?

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• Articles
  March 01, 2016 EDT
  Visual Rhetoric: Topics of Invention and Arrangement and Tropes of Style
  Michael D. Murray

  One picture can replace a thousand words of legal discourse.

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• Articles
  March 01, 2016 EDT
  Ethos, Character, and Discoursal Self in Persuasive Legal Writing
  J. Christopher Rideout

  If rhetoric is commonly defined as the art of persuasion, then persuasion itself may be seen as the art of convincing through character.

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• Articles
  March 01, 2015 EDT
  Art-iculating the Analysis: Systemizing the Decision to Use Visuals as Legal Reasoning
  Steve JohansenRuth Anne Robbins

  Lawyers should begin to persuade with the same type of visual acuity as so many other forms of written communication by incorporating visuals into legal documents.

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• Articles
  March 01, 2011 EDT
  Judicial Opinion Writing: An Annotated Bibliography
  Ruth C. Vance

  This Bibliography supplies legal writers with a list of resources for both opinion writing and for those preparing to work with or write for judges.

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• Articles
  March 01, 2010 EDT
  Persuading Judges: An Empirical Analysis of Writing Style, Persuasion, and the Use of Plain English
  Sean Flammer

  Does Plain English help litigators persuade judges?

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• Articles
  March 01, 2010 EDT
  Using the Elements of Rhythm, Flow, and Tone to Create a More Effective and Persuasive Acoustic Experience in Legal Writing
  Bret Rappaport

  Rhythm, flow, and tone are essential components of music, and, therefore, essential components of well-written prose. Such components must be consciously incorporated by attorneys into their persuasive legal writing.

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• Articles
  March 01, 2009 EDT
  Introducing Persuasive Legal Argument via The Letter From a Birmingham City Jail
  Mark DeForrest

  Martin Luther King’s letter is well-worth reading closely when beginning the study of the art of legal persuasion.

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• Articles
  March 01, 2008 EDT
  The Plot Thickens: The Appellate Brief as Story
  Kenneth D. Chestek

  This article was published in Volume 14 as part of the symposium “Once upon a Legal Time: Developing the Skills of Storytelling in Law."

• Articles
  March 01, 2008 EDT
  Lawyer as Artist: Using Significant Moments and Obtuse Objects to Enhance Advocacy
  James Parry Eyster

  This article was published in Volume 14 as part of the symposium “Once upon a Legal Time: Developing the Skills of Storytelling in Law."

• Articles
  March 01, 2008 EDT
  Storytelling, Narrative Rationality, and Legal Persuasion
  J. Christopher Rideout

  This article was published in Volume 14 as part of the symposium “Once upon a Legal Time: Developing the Skills of Storytelling in Law."

• Articles
  March 01, 2007 EDT
  The Methodology of Persuasion: A Process-Based Approach to Persuasive Writing
  Cara CunninghamMichelle Streicher

  Teaching persuasive writing remains a challenge, in part, because legal writing professors have not been taking a process-based approach to teaching it.

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• Articles
  March 01, 2002 EDT
  The Inside Scoop: What Federal Judges Really Think About the Way Lawyers Write
  Kristen K. Robbins

  What troubles federal judges most is not what lawyers say but what they fail to say when writing briefs.

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• Articles
  March 01, 1999 EDT
  Teaching First-Semester Students that Objective Analysis Persuades
  Julie Spanbauer

  Legal writing courses should stop pitting objective writing against persuasive writing by creating a false dichotomy between them.

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• Articles
  March 01, 1998 EDT
  Representing Non-Mainstream Clients to Mainstream Judges: A Challenge of Persuasion
  Diana Pratt

  The problem is straightforward: how to overcome unconscious bias. The challenge is more interesting: how to persuade a mainstream court to consider the facts from a different perspective.

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