How Shakespeare can enhance the skills of lawyers

...My point is this: The study of literature gives a lawyer, particularly a trial lawyer, many of the skills he or she needs to assess evidence and persuade a trier of fact. What follows is only a partial list:

• Affinity for "close reading"

The predominant school of literary criticism that emerged after World War II was "the New Criticism." Among its principal tenets were that works of literature must be examined as autonomous wholes and that their meaning did not derive either from their historical context or from the author's biography, but from the structure and language of the work itself. New Critics promoted "close reading" -- they scrutinized texts for evidence of irony, ambiguity and complexity. Whatever the limits of their doctrine, they encouraged their students to read every sentence carefully and critically.

Lawyers need to be close readers. That is true whether one is reading a contract, a prospectus or a trial transcript. A sensitivity to ambiguity helps, particularly in contract interpretation.

Close reading is also an essential skill in evaluating a trial record; whether the evidence is sufficient to prove the claim asserted can turn on a sentence or a phrase, and very often what is left unproven is as important as what a poet leaves unsaid. Appellate lawyers earn their living by reading trial transcripts as closely as any critic reads a play: careful scrutiny usually reveals that witnesses often say far less, or far more, than they intend.

• Sense of narrative structure

A literary critic must be sensitive to form. Any lawyer who deals with facts undertakes the same exercise. Mere chronological narratives are lifeless and, even worse, unpersuasive. Any narrative must be shaped, whether it is for the benefit of a jury or an appellate court.

When I was a federal prosecutor, I knew that I had to extract themes from the facts presented to make my narrative intelligible. Without the structure a theme imposes, it is more difficult for a trier of fact to put facts in context or for a reader to discern meaning...

~ more... ~