Presenting a compelling case at trial is about telling a compelling story. Specifically, it is about assembling disparate pieces of evidence and making them tell a story. It is more like a collage or a mixtape than a single, linear narrative. Of course, going to trial is only a small part of your job as a family lawyer. You can help most of your clients achieve their goals without ever convincing a judge of anything. Most of the time, the audience for your stories is your clients, the former spouses of your clients, and your prospective clients. Which stories you should tell them, and why, varies according to the circumstances. Given that family law attorneys only got to where they are because of their legal storytelling ability, your narrative skills can help you attract clients and enable them to get a successful outcome in their cases.
Legal Storytelling Beyond the Courtroom
Entertainment is only one of the functions of storytelling. Even the most fun stories aim to make a point, to persuade their audiences of something. Once the Brothers Grimm collected folktales from various parts of Europe and wrote them down, it did not take the reading public long to figure out that grandmothers told their granddaughters the story of the Frog Prince as an example of how not to let their husbands boss them around.
Your job as a family law attorney is to help your clients see the big picture when they are in no mood to listen to reason, and to talk them down from their revenge fantasies. The most effective way to do this is through storytelling. Tell them about the stay-at-home mom who was determined to stay in the marital home, despite having a low-paying job, as a result of her limited work experience. You summoned every possible witness to explain why the wife should keep the house and why the husband should help her pay, in the sense that the children’s housing expenses in the formal marital home were part of the child support order, and given the wife’s absence from the workforce, she was entitled to alimony for a few years. The judge awarded the house to the wife and ordered her to refinance the mortgage in her name only. With her measly income, she could not afford it, so her parents cosigned on the refinanced mortgage. Everything was fine until the husband’s alimony obligations ended, at least from the wife’s perspective. Perhaps she had been banking on finding a new rich husband by the time the alimony order expired, but things did not work out that way. She was stuck making the mortgage payment on her same modest income, and her parents were not exactly overjoyed to help their overgrown child with her mortgage payments. Instead of getting generous graduation gifts from their grandparents, her kids are now stuck making tough choices about going to community college or taking out student loans, all because their mother was too stubborn to sell the house and move to an apartment.
Anecdotes Belong in Client Consultations, Not on Your Blog
The story of the stubborn ex-wife is effective when you tell it in your office to a new client who tearfully insists that she could never stand to sell the house where her children took their first steps, that it is her family’s generational wealth, and her only vision of happiness is to see her grandchildren take their first steps in the same house. To tell a story like this on your law firm’s blog would be terrible for your professional reputation, but beyond it being tacky to gossip, it could even get you disciplinary action for breach of confidentiality. Anecdotes about people you have met personally, even if you do not reveal their names or identifying details, do not belong on your blog; the characters in your entertaining story will recognize themselves.
Your Law Firm’s Blog is the Place to Let Your Inner Essayist Run Wild
The authorial voice that you use to tell stories on your blog should be different. Tell stories that are already part of public discourse, and link to your sources. Find divorce-related clickbait news from your state and make it make sense from a legal perspective, or better yet, debunk it by showing that it is legally impossible. Explain that Mr. Vain cannot really take the children away from his ex-wife Ms. Vapid just because he is rich; both parents are still entitled to parenting time, even though they are not perfect. Be the voice of reason in the midst of all the misandry and misogyny that floats around on social media.
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