I said elsewhere that telling a better story is different from telling a story better and it is the first that should be the focus in a court of law. This is perhaps a statement in need of defence and explanation. In common law, each side comes to court with a ‘story’: this story tells the court what the facts of the case are, what are the applicable laws to these facts, and what is the proper way of applying these laws to these particular facts.
Now these stories may be better or worse in the sense that they may be more or less accurate renditions of the facts, more or less accurate presentation of the applicable laws, and better or worse argued application of the laws to the facts. Here the lawyer needs the argumentative skills of say a professional writer and the clarity of thought of say an analytic philosopher.
These stories may also be told in a better or worse fashion in that they may be presented to the court in more or less sympathetic or persuasive language, or conveyed more or less powerfully through the in court performance of the lawyer, who will need the persuasive skills of an orator and the performance skills of an actor.
I think the perfect lawyer would have both sets of skills, but it seems to me that the judgment of the court ‘must’ be constrained by the first and only perhaps augmented or inspired by the second.
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