Law "With" Literature

What lessons emerge from great rhetoric to improve the substantive and stylistic persuasive force of public presentations (whether in litigation or non-litigation settings) delivered by lawyers?

The resources in this category encompass classic speeches from literature and history to address this question. These resources include videos and texts of the speeches, as well as law journal articles (e.g., published scholarship or practitioner articles), reviews (e.g., of books and dramatic performances), lecture notes (to assist in class presentations and study) and commentary (e.g., monologues and dialogs).

Among the great teachers and/or practitioners of rhetoric considered are:

• Plato (Ancient Greece, 428/427 or 424/423-348 B.C.)
• Aristotle (Ancient Greece, 384-322 B.C.)
• Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603)
• Prime Minister Winston Churchill (1874-1965)
• Mohandas (Mahatma) K. Gandhi (1869-1948)
• President John F. Kennedy (1917-1962)
• President Jimmy Carter (1924-)
• Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King (1929-1968)
• Coach Jimmy Valvano (1946-1993)

Similarly, characters in the works of several of literary giants (listed in the Law "In" Literature category), including Shakespeare, provide fruitful insights. By no means are these examples exclusive. The same caveat noted with respect to the literary figures from the table in the Law "In" Literature category is equally applicable to these rhetoricians.