The Role of Storytelling in Legal Communication (www.kiu.ac.ug)

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The Role of Storytelling in Legal Communication
Okwerede Emmanuel
College of Economics, Kampala International University, Uganda
ABSTRACT
Storytelling is a powerful tool in legal communication, serving as a means of making complex legal
arguments more comprehensible and persuasive. This paper investigates how storytelling enhances
advocacy by engaging the emotions and empathy of judges, jurors, and other legal audiences. It delves
into the significance of narrative techniques in trial proceedings, legal writing, and negotiation,
examining how storytelling can simplify intricate legal matters while maintaining accuracy and ethical
integrity. The study further discusses strategies for integrating storytelling into legal practice,
emphasizing the selection of appropriate narratives and their impact on legal decision-making. Through
case studies and theoretical analysis, this paper highlights how effective storytelling contributes to
successful legal advocacy while addressing the ethical considerations surrounding its use.
Keywords: Legal storytelling, advocacy, legal communication, persuasion, narrative techniques,
emotional connection.
INTRODUCTION
The process of storytelling goes hand in hand with advocacy and thus with legal communication. For the
practice of law and the following judicial decision-making, particularly in common law systems, advocacy
is a vital skill. It may be less evident in the civil law systems, where the primary duty of the judge is not
seen as determining the facts of the case, but rather interpreting the law and applying those
interpretations to the facts as determined by delegated fact-finders. Judges, uninfluenced by public
relations and other interests that affect commercial lawyers, are more receptive to a mode of
communication that prioritizes a straightforward and comprehensive account of events. The fundamental
duty of a lawyer is to present their client’s case, both facts and law, in a manner beneficial to their
interests, so they must be able to communicate that case most effectively. Furthermore, when a case is
decided by a jury, it is paramount that it is communicated in a manner that is straightforward and
comprehensible to laypeople for them to make an informed decision [1, 2, 3]. There are, however, set
methodologies and rules on how the law can be established. The professional agglomerates of lawyers and
judges that developed in the medieval period established these methodologies and systems of proof so that
laws could be understood and applied with regularity. These processes, with time, transformed into set
itineraries of trial or suit, with resulting procedures that could be usefully followed in a set order.
Unfortunately for modern legal professionals, such procedures have become encrusted and overly
complex, and the brevity of the deadline and obligation to cover all relevant authorities and arguments in
the written skeleton arguments makes the use of such set itineraries impossible or impractical.
Consequentially, the complex legal argument commonly found in written legal submissions can appear
trepidatious to retainers and evoke frustration in the judiciary. As such, legal reasoning and argument
must be recast in a more comprehensible and eloquent manner [4, 5].
The Power of Storytelling in Advocacy
Storytelling has been recognized as an effective method for conveying complex legal issues in an
accessible manner, and an increasing number of law schools have workshops and courses on the subject.
Storytelling goes beyond merely arguing the law and the facts; it involves telling the facts in such a way
that the audience will feel as opposed to thinking. This is important when arguing a motion because the
matter is so complex an advocate must simplify. Storytelling is a way of doing so. It is one way of
engaging the judge's emotions, a way of engendering empathy for a client to persuade. It is a way of
Eurasian Experiment Journal of Arts and Management
(EEJAM) ISSN: 2992-412X
©EEJAM Publications Volume 7 Issue 3 2025

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making a subtle appeal that is disguised as understanding [6, 7]. Reading scripts of five successful motion
arguments, one feature in all of them is how the complexity of the facts was broken down into smaller
narratives. By crafting stories and explaining the psychological principles behind why those stories are
persuasive, it is hoped that advocates will be better equipped to approach the bench and make a
compelling argument [8, 9]. It is generally accepted among trial advocacy experts that a legal argument
may be greatly enhanced by couching it in narrative form. Any lawyer worth her salt has heard countless
times that her job comes down to “telling a good story.” At its most basic level, an argument is a story.
There is a story the lawyer writes; it is the story from her client’s perspective. So that legal writers are
not confused, however, there is no question that the law should be woven throughout the story. It is
carried by the facts that are selected for inclusion, by how the facts are argued, and by the legal
authorities presented in the story. A story the lawyer’s opponent will tell works as a map that the lawyer
will draw, much like an ink blot map in a child’s coloring book. These story maps are the only way the
judge will hear the client’s story and the only way it will appear to the judge through the pleading
requirements [10, 11].
Emotional Connection and Empathy
A focused examination of how empathy and emotional connection are major variables in legal storytelling
reveals just how far more research is necessary. A psychological perspective highlights the effectiveness
of narrative messages on the public as a way to deliver a concealed policy argument. People readily
become absorbed in a message that is structured as a narrative. If a message is made in a story, then
people tend to be transported into its images, sounds, and feelings and temporarily lose touch with the
world around them. While absorbed in the message, an individual's world changes and can be shaped by
the conflict. Narratives that evoke empathy on the public’s side are more effective at transmitting their
own concealed policy argument. People generally wish to help others who are in the same position they
have formerly been in. Thus the type of empathy evoked by the narrative should be shared with a fictional
character, despite the message coming from the other side of the issue. Understanding the emotions the
public feels towards an audience can be of help in the development of persuasive narratives. Like in the
case of the general narrative fall event given with jurors, these narratives must speak to the public’s
values, emotions, and beliefs and thus refrain from limiting the account to legal procedures, declarations,
or outlines, and instead, shed light on the human experience behind the issue. Several additional variables
discovered as being important in the effectiveness of a narrative message are adduced. The public’s
reaction to a narrative that has worn the public narrative seal is also put to the test to verify if there is a
total agreement in the results on both sides [12, 13].
Strategies for Incorporating Storytelling in Legal Communication
Law practitioners are exhorted to be effective storytellers, i.e., they must be able to tell others what
happened in a way that is not only legally relevant but interesting and persuasive also. Indeed, any lawyer
worth her salt knows that being able to translate a statement of facts into a story that is engaging and
compelling is critical – for during pretrial practice to sway a court to see matters the client’s way. To say
that a trial or an appeal concerns a ‘story’ is a cliché, but the entire legal field is woven with narrative
tactics to secure wins for clients or to persuade the courts to embrace certain principles. Storytelling,
therefore, is not only the handmaiden of delivering a clear picture for triers but a powerful mode of
persuasion also. There are too many kinds of stories with too many purposes to tell in the practice of law
[14, 15]. Consequently, being a good storyteller requires intentionality: it is essential that the narrative
selected is not only vivid and coherent but that it serves to make a certain point as well. Unintentionally
selected stories can have a neutral or even detrimental effect during these exchanges. Knowing what
story to tell is as important as it is to practice the art. Storytelling should be seen as a mechanism of
increasing clarity and persuasiveness in legal communication, as a set of strategies instead of a valence of
story to be deployed. Three general guidelines are offered that stakeholders in the legal process might
consider in addition to incorporating more storytelling into their advocacy repertoire. These guidelines
provide a framework for being compassionate agents by listening and engaging more effectively with all
stories shared during the legal encounter in the hope that this might bring about better and more
‘preferred’ outcomes [16, 17].
Choosing The Right Narrative
Lawyers must be good storytellers. As a storytelling lawyer, there is a critical decision on which narrative
will be most effective. Lawyers have a choice among many types of narratives; personal stories, case
histories, hypothetical scenarios, and more can be presented. Narrative communication theory contends
that the objectives of any particular narrative are often best realized through one narrative form, in one
light, or within a single context. Legal history can yield clues on how narrative choices have traditionally

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been made in legal communication, yet narrative theories offer far greater guidance on how to choose the
right narrative. At the same time, the law has evolved to obscure facts in the adversarial system. As such,
story topics are sometimes successfully kept away from the jury, the judge, and the general public. But
what is inadmissible in court is often sharable in other realms. Literary and narrative theorists have much
to say about how form relates to content and how a story is processed by an audience. Narrativity also
explores the ever-changing relationship between subjects and observers of stories, often focusing on the
unsettling implications of form and process for truth. Learning and then retelling a story is also a goal of
advocacy pursued in this light, one that will be taken up here. Trial lawyers might take careful note of
how stories should be told, or of the larger ethical implications that telling and retelling might entail.
Teachers of trial advocacy will no doubt find an approach to witness roles and methods of interest.
Ultimately storytelling within the legal profession is an issue. The goal here is to know how narrative
choices affect perception and outcome, and to thus be able to make better decisions about how cases - and
ourselves - are seen [18, 19, 20].
Case Studies: Successful Examples of Storytelling in Legal Advocacy
“Our Stories”, “But the Eyes are the Windows to their Stories”, and “Storytelling and Oral Storytelling in
American Deportation Defense” proficiently articulate dozens of varied stories, at least on the surface of
things - they implicate the use of explicit "storytelling techniques": in “Our Stories”, for instance, much is
made of the thieves' offered help to hang the moon back up after it falls to the earth; “But the Eyes”
concentrates on the specifics of Ali's wife's death; and “Oral Storytelling” is all about the construction of a
"story bank" of emotions paired with narrative situations. With a closer look, however, it becomes plain
that implicit in the collection of attested stories are involved diverse other "techniques", which reveal how
these stories work to call to mind and stage various identification claims - several of which significantly
elicited judge denials, leading to asylum refusal decisions. This paper analyzes these diverse other
storytelling techniques in a random deportation case study [21, 22, 23].
Ethical Considerations in Storytelling and Advocacy
Storytelling by lawyers plays an important role in the legal system, but it must be used responsibly, while
ethical considerations for both sides and storytelling’s role in negotiation and settlement. Time-honored
legal conventions ground storytelling rules for lawyers in two basic precepts —accuracy and relevance.
Accuracy demands that representations made to the court be absolutely and entirely true. Relevance
demands that the story told be pertinent to the legal issues resolved by the trial. Anything can be the
subject of a legal story, provided it avoids the legal no man’s land of hearsay, the irrelevant, and the
inflammatory. Legal advocates may deploy their talents at trial in narrow and specific circumstances, but
in broader terms, most legal narratives are not crafted by the advocate at all [24, 25]. Effective
storytelling can be a weapon that poses risks to both sides. In the hands of an armed and skilled
practitioner, it can snuff out a client’s case before it goes to trial. Analyze how narratives can be exploited
in this manner and what risks they pose to lawyers and clients alike. Sound a cautionary note for trial
attorneys tempted to deploy the narrative arts as weapons to be wielded without discrimination.
Encourages other legal writers to join in this effort, however, asking how narratives might best be turned
to protect and defend clients, pointing out the genuine risks posed by adversarial storytelling to both
parties [26, 27].
CONCLUSION
Storytelling is an essential skill in legal advocacy, enabling lawyers to present cases in a compelling and
accessible manner. By framing legal arguments within engaging narratives, attorneys can foster empathy,
enhance clarity, and persuade judges and juries effectively. However, the ethical use of storytelling must
remain a priority, ensuring accuracy and fairness in legal proceedings. As legal education increasingly
recognizes the value of narrative strategies, practitioners must refine their storytelling skills to balance
persuasion with ethical responsibility. Ultimately, storytelling serves not only as a persuasive tool but
also as a means to uphold justice by making the law more understandable and relatable.
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CITE AS: Okwerede Emmanuel. (2025). The Role of Storytelling
in Legal Communication. Eurasian Experiment Journal of Arts
and Management 7(3):97-101

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