Lubet's Nothing But The Truth presents a novel and engaging analysis of
the role of storytelling in trial advocacy. The best lawyers are
storytellers, he explains, who take the raw and disjointed observations
of witnesses and transform them into coherent and persuasive
narratives.
Critics of the adversary system, of course, have little patience for
storytelling, regarding trial lawyers as flimflam artists who use sly
means and cunning rhetoric to befuddle witnesses and bamboozle juries.
Why not simply allow the witnesses to speak their minds, without the
distorting influence of lawyers' stratagems and feints?
But Lubet demonstrates that the craft of lawyer storytelling is a
legitimate technique for determining the truth andnot at all
coincidentallyfor providing the best defense for the attorney's client.
Storytelling accomplishes three important purposes at trial. It helps to
establish a "theory of the case," which is a plausible and reasonable
explanation of the underlying events, presented in the light most
favorable to the attorney's client. Storytelling also develops the
"trial theme," which is the lawyer's way of adding moral force to the
desired outcome. Most importantly, storytelling provides a coherent
"story frame," which organizes all of the events, transactions, and
other surrounding facts into an easily understandable narrative
context.
As with all powerful tools, storytelling may be misused to ill purposes.
Therefore, as Lubet explains, lawyers do not have carte blanche to tell
whatever stories they choose. It is a creative process to be sure, but
every story must ultimately be based on "nothing but the truth." There
is no room for lying.
On the other hand, it is obvious that trial lawyers never tell "the
whole truth," since life and experience are boundless and therefore not
fully describable. No lawyer or court of law can ever get at the whole
truth, but the attorney who effectively employs the techniques of
storytelling will do the best job of sorting out competing claims and
facts, thereby helping the court arrive at a decision that serves the
goals of accuracy and justice.
To illustrate the various challenges, benefits, and complexities of
storytelling, Lubet elaborates the stories of six different trials. Some
of the cases are real, including John Brown and Wyatt Earp, while some
are fictional, including Atticus Finch and Liberty Valance. In each
chapter, the emphasis is on the narrative itself, emphasizing the
trial's rich context of facts and personalities. The overall conclusion,
as Lubet puts it, is that "purposive storytelling provides a necessary
dimension to our adversary system of justice."
