Advocates as storytellers

• Author: Stephen Grant
• Pages: 1-1

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g Part One g

ADVOCATES AS

STORYTELLERS

In many ways, advocates are actors and storytellers, especially in

front of a jury. They might write their scripts to begin, but the frailty

of witnesses makes going o-script as much the rule as the exception.

Like every story, each case, whether at trial or on appeal, has a moral. It

generally portrays a party wearing a “white hat’’ and another wearing

a “black hat,” usually more nuanced than that distinction implies. The

authors in this chapter– judge, advocates, former actors and novelist –

reect their dierent vantage points on lawyers and the “stories” we tell.