The lights go down. The room quiets. An image flickers on the screen. There’s a noise—a door closing, a person whispering, a shift in the air. What’s happening? Are you about to see a film you’ve been anticipating? Or are you sitting in your office, preparing to finalize a brief due at the end of the week?
Where would you prefer to be? Presumably the theater. And why? Because the movie will be an engaging, and perhaps transcendent, story. It will take you on a journey and make you feel, maybe moving you to laughter or tears. It may change your outlook on life.
Will the brief? Probably not.
The goal of legal writing is persuasion—convincing someone to adopt or favor your argument over your opposition’s view. And it’s difficult if not impossible to persuade your audience if you’re not engaging them.
Legal writing must be firmly grounded in the facts of a particular case and founded upon governing legal authority. But it shouldn’t be a bullet-pointed list of facts and case citations. It should be a compelling narrative.
For help in making your writing truly compelling, there’s no better place to look than to the screenwriters of Hollywood. So, as you look at your laptop screen about to edit the word salad you’ve been asked to dress up before the court-imposed deadline, here are three paramount storytelling concepts to integrate into your brief.
The Hero’s Journey
Remember that a piece of legal writing is a story. You’re taking the reader on a journey, akin to the journey an audience goes on when watching a film. The narrative should follow the time-tested hero’s journey described in Joseph Campbell’s, “The Hero With a Thousand Faces” (and since repackaged for screenwriters in works such as Christoper Vogler’s “The Writer’s Journey” and Blake Snyder’s “Save the Cat”).
As Vogler wrote, “Stories built on the model of the Hero’s Journey have an appeal that can be felt by everyone, because they spring from a universal source in the collective unconscious, and because they reflect universal concerns.” Legal writing should tell a story in the form of a hero’s journey (the hero being you and/or your client) because receiving information in that form is the process for learning that is hardwired into human beings.
Next time you file a brief, make sure it’s not just a bloodless and boring recitation of facts followed by an equally flat summary of governing authority. Instead, set up your argument as a battle of good versus evil, the just versus the unjust, or the underdog versus the all-powerful bureaucracy. In your battle, the hero sets out; is joined by allies (helpful facts and supporting authority); is confronted by enemies (contrary facts and opposing authority); and battles the villain or the evil creature (the other side’s key argument(s)).
The hero then returns home battle-tested, weary, but victorious and better for the experience—“if the requested relief is granted, Plaintiff will finally be able to afford much-needed medical care to manage her pain, return to work, and support her family despite her significant personal injuries.” No doubt that will capture the court’s attention.
As any good screenwriter knows, in telling a story, one must raise the stakes. You can’t expect your reader to be invested if little is on the line. But if you raise the stakes—will Michael actually shoot Sollozzo and the police captain and cross over into a world of organized crime, or will Rick demonstrate his love for Ilsa by giving her and Laszlo the letters of transit so they can escape Casablanca and the Nazis?—then suddenly we’re all the way in.
Raise the Stakes
Similarly with legal writing, it’s important to raise the stakes, which aren’t just one side winning or losing. They must be higher and clearly shown so your reader knows exactly the horrors that will ensue if your position isn’t adopted—“Ms. Smith’s life has been ruined by the catastrophic, life-altering injury, and without the damages she seeks, she will not be able to afford medical care, manage her pain, return to work, and support her family.”
The stakes should be life and death—metaphorically, if not literally. And if your writing doesn’t have that level of urgency and importance, you should address that.
Not every motion to compel discovery has the same stakes as, say, “Independence Day.” (If you don’t get the documents you want, humanity won’t be incinerated. But even discovery is important, and it’s your job to show the court why and how cataclysm will ensue if your argument is rejected.
Make Them Feel
Remember that people react most to how they feel. As Maya Angelou famously said, “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Too often, lawyers forget this. We believe our facts or case law, standing alone, are compelling enough to win. We forget that the readers of our written work are human beings, and human beings are emotional creatures.
Paint pictures with words, and structure your story in such a way that your audience is inexorably led to feel how you wish them to. That’s why “Jaws” is so effective as a movie. We don’t even see the shark for the first 81 minutes of the film. All we see are the fin and the ripple in the water coupled with John Williams’ music, and we know—that’s dangerous, be afraid. “Jaws” was reportedly so effective in scaring beachgoers that beach attendance noticeably decreased in the summer of 1975 after the movie’s release.
As you return your attention to your laptop and the dumpster full of words masquerading as a brief, it’s time to fix it up. Tell a story in a way that gets the reader emotionally invested in your desired outcome and feeling the highest stakes possible. Find your yellow-brick road to the Wizard so you can go home.
This article does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg Industry Group, Inc., the publisher of Bloomberg Law and Bloomberg Tax, or its owners.
Author Information
Alex Barnett is partner at DiCello Levitt where he focuses on complex, class action litigation, and representing those injured by antitrust violations.
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