Faculty Publications

Lawyers know how to tell a good story and are expected, en-couraged, and even ethically required to use that skill on behalf of their clients. In this article, the authors identify the benefits to the legal profession and the public of the use of client stories in legal scholarship and highlight the ethical issues raised by such publication. It is the interplay between these values-the improvement of the legal system versus the protection of client confidentiality-that is the focus of this paper.

Relevancy decisions, according to the prevailing view, are matters of probability, whether a given piece of evidence makes any legal proposition more (or less) likely to occur. This view has long held sway, from the early rationalist scholar James Bradley Thayer through the codification of formal rules of evidence, supplanting the common law’s acceptance of witness-framed narratives. But a purely logical analysis, one famously framed in terms of a mathematical equation, seems ill-suited for trial decisions. And the Probabilistic Paradigm often excludes context necessary for a party to present its case. This Article brings together two areas of scholarship that challenge a purely logical approach to relevancy decisions. Drawing on cognitive science and philosophy, the Explanatory Paradigm offers an effective critique of making admissibility decisions based on probabilistic formulas. This model also provides robust criteria for judging explanations. The Explanatory Paradigm, though, gives little attention to the role of narrative, a concern at the heart of Applied Legal Storytelling. This Article aims to correct this oversight. Applied Legal Storytelling’s insights on narrative and context, combined with the criteria of the Explanatory Paradigm, offer a workable alternative to the Probabilistic Paradigm. This project, in important ways, restores the common law’s embrace of witness stories as a way to determine the truth.

The Sixth Edition of Essential Lawyering Skills: Interviewing, Counseling, Negotiation, and Persuasive Fact Analysis continues to emphasize the role of the attorney in the lawyer-client relationship. Widely respected practitioners and teachers, the authors' introductions, visual aids, and realistic examples illuminate the basic mechanics of these key skills. Case situations and problem-solving scenarios engage students in developing essential lawyering skills that mirror legal practice.The topic of professional responsibility is integrated throughout. New to the Sixth Edition: New co-author Renée Hutchins brings her new perspective to the course Updated and improved design makes the material more accessible for today's student Increased coverage of negotiation in the plea-bargaining context Updated examination of the use of electronic media in fact analysis and negotiation Professors and students will benefit from: An emphasis on practice and the mechanics of negotiation and persuasion, rather than on theory Complete coverage of problem solving, interviewing, counseling, negotiation, and fact analysis Remarkably clear and penetrating discussion of the persuasive value of facts, supported by useful visual aids Generous use of interesting examples that place topics in context Integrated coverage of professional responsibility where appropriate Experienced authors, who draw upon many years of teaching and writing about lawyering skills