What if the Wolf Wasn’t Really the Big Bad in All Those Fairy Tales but Was Just Misunderstood?: Techniques for Maintaining Narrative Rationality While Altering Stock Stories that Are Harmful to Your Client’s Case

Jennifer L. Sheppard, Mercer University School of Law

Abstract

This article explores the cognitive effects of narrative, including the effects that stock stories have on judges and jurors. It also explores what a lawyer can do when an unfavorable stock story is so pervasive that it will not allow a lawyer to ignore it and a more favorable alternative story does not exist. This article posits that a lawyer can present the client’s story from an alternative perspective that will not evoke the embedded knowledge structures triggered by the unfavorable stock story by manipulating the various threads of narrative rationality (the traits that makes one story more persuasive than another). Specifically, the lawyer who limits the client’s story to the facts leading to the litigation focuses on the persuasive power of narrative coherence by ensuring that the story is plausible as all aspects of it mesh with one another. On the other hand, the lawyer who shifts from a narrow to a broader view of a case will rely on the persuasive power of narrative correspondence by mapping a cultural myth onto her client’s story. Finally, by creating friction between the client’s character and the outcome associated with a stock story, the lawyer can draw on the persuasive power of narrative fidelity and shift the reader’s expectations about how things should turn out.