News Archive
Professor Ken Chestek Chairs Panel at Opening of Once Upon a Legal Story
07/23/2009
Professor Kenneth Chestek was asked to be a member of a panel making the opening plenary presentation at the Once Upon a Legal Story (Chapter Two) conference at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon on July 22-24. He is presenting the results of an empirical study he worked on earlier this year exploring whether appellate judges are persuaded by stories incorporated into appellate briefs. The study asked a group of appellate judges, appellate law clerks, appellate lawyers and law professors to read and evaluate a pair of briefs, one of which was written as a “pure legal argument” (using traditional syllogisms and the standard tools for legal anaysis) and the other which incorporated an additional “story” element (a legally irrelevant, but interesting background detail that provided context for the litigant’s motivations and goals). His findings showed that judges, lawyers and law professors did find the story brief more persuasive while the law clerks judgment was not affected by this additional element of the brief.
Professor Chestek is currently working on an article based upon this study entitled, “Judging By the Numbers: An Empirical Study of the Power of the Story.”
For more information on the Once Upon a Story Conference please visit:
