Storytelling – A Valuable Tool in Litigation

 

Our caveman ancestors probably only communicated through stories. From when we were children we were told stories and they usually had some lesson to convey, some moral truth and those of us who have children now often tell them stories for similar reasons. Television is endless storytelling and a movie is often rated on the basis of how good a story it tells. We communicate with each other often in story form. We read newspaper articles that are often in the form of storytelling with a protagonist at the heart of the story. All good stories have a hero or someone we care about or like. The Wide World of Sports was extremely successful because it did not just relate sporting events, it personalized and humanized the athletes and so we often cared about whether they succeeded or not. When we are moved, we empathize with their success, their failure and disappointment or any injustice that they suffered.

Though we are often interested and gripped by the underlying story, we anticipate the resolution of the conflict to see how the hero turns out. Our Judges have been exposed to the same constant storytelling in our society and more so. Most, if not all, Judges are moved more by fairness, common sense and compassion to help a person who has been wronged and by clever legal analysis. So, I propose that there is no more valuable a tool in litigation than storytelling. [Complete Whitepaper Here]