See a photo of Diane, her bio, and Part 1 of this Q&A, and Part 2.
Q&A with Diane Wyzga, Question 3:
Q: In what ways is legal storytelling different from other forms of applied storytelling? For example, on your web site, you mention analytical thinking. To what extent do you think legal storytelling takes a more analytical approach than other forms of applied storytelling?
A: Generally speaking, here’s the paradox: lawyers need to be able to prove the case and tell the client’s story but lawyers generally are given the least training to do the story part well. So often what I hear is: fire + marshmallow + water + soup, now give me a conclusion.
In law school students are required to brief cases with a formula called
“IRAC” for Issue, Rule, Application, and Conclusion. A briefed case may sound like this. Issue: whether a man hit by the contents of a chamber pot being emptied out a window is entitled to damages. Rule: do not empty your chamber pot out the window. Application (of the rule to the issue): In an effort to clean up its image, the town of X passed a law stating that residents must not empty chamber pots out the window but dispose of the contents in the new “sewer system.” Jack did not want to walk 9 flights down to the sewer system so he chose to do what he always did: empty his chamber pot out the window where the contents fell on Tom who was walking under the window. Conclusion: Jack should be hung out and dried for breaking the new law. Tom should be compensated.
Compound law school’s IRAC training with the type person that typically goes into the practice of law: logical, sequential, analytical, data driven, and practical. These are all good and wonderful left-brain traits. Storytelling relies more on right-brain traits: imagination, creativity, intuition, non-linear visualization, and big picture concepts.
I’ve heard that “People who invent stories intimidate people who do not.” Lawyers are suspicious of stories that do not come packaged in structures. Can you see where the battle lines are drawn?
In no other area do I find this conundrum: on the one hand, law requires analytical, logical, left-brained, content-based thinking to strategize and prove a case. On the other hand, jurors and others are required to render decisions and verdicts. The collective conscience of the community does not make reasoned, fact-based decisions. Science has shown and continues to show that we make moral decisions on an unconscious basis that we support with facts we gather to fit the decision. We believe what we understand. We understand what comes to us in a story that mimics our life experiences.
The justice system is designed to address only the legal elements. But everybody knows that the legal elements came about because of the personal situation of the client. A story focuses attention and judgment on certain key ideas or behaviors, and on understanding the significance of the behavior.
What do you do to develop a forensic fact pattern into a real life drama? Begin with your right-brain traits to prepare the outline of the story you need to tell. Most likely it will be your client’s story. Then creatively visualize what that story could sound like no matter how disorganized it may first appear to you. Get that story down. Then bring in the left-brain traits to shape the story with the data and evidence necessary to prove the story.