Speaking truth to power: the language of civil rights litigators.

Yale Law Journal, January, 1995 by Eastman, Herbert A.

Civil rights lawyers litigate cases arising from compelling stories of dramatic and persuasive narrative power. In their cases, lawyers are confronted with several strategic reasons for pleading their clients' stories in more expanisve and persuasive ways. But despite the narrative force of the stories, lawyers write about them in stale, technical, and "thin" ways that lose persuasive power and narrative elements. In this Article, Professor Eastman contrasts factual allegations from civil rights pleadings with journalists' and historians' accounts of the same cases. The comparison demonstrates and measures the loss incurred with the traditional form of pleading. While this "thin" writing stems from a number of factors--including procedural rules, legal education, professional...

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