Ruth Anne Robbins - Your Clients Story: Persuasive Legal Writing

Your Clients Story

EDITORIAL ADVISORS

Rachel E. Barkow

Segal Family Professor of Regulatory Law and Policy

Faculty Director, Center on the Administration of Criminal Law

New York University School of Law

Erwin Chemerinsky

Dean and Jesse H. Choper Distinguished Professor of Law

University of California, Berkeley School of Law

Richard A. Epstein

Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law

New York University School of Law

Peter and Kirsten Bedford Senior Fellow

The Hoover Institution

Senior Lecturer in Law

The University of Chicago

Ronald J. Gilson

Charles J. Meyers Professor of Law and Business

Stanford University

Marc and Eva Stern Professor of Law and Business

Columbia Law School

James E. Krier

Earl Warren DeLano Professor of Law

The University of Michigan Law School

Tracey L. Meares

Walton Hale Hamilton Professor of Law

Director, The Justice Collaboratory

Yale Law School

Richard K. Neumann, Jr.

Alexander Bickel Professor of Law

Maurice A. Deane School of Law at Hofstra University

Robert H. Sitkoff

John L. Gray Professor of Law

Harvard Law School

David Alan Sklansky

Stanley Morrison Professor of Law

Faculty Co-Director, Stanford Criminal Justice Center

Stanford Law School

ASPEN SELECT SERIES

Your Clients Story:
Persuasive Legal
Writing

Second Edition

Ruth Anne Robbins

Distinguished Clinical Professor of Law
Rutgers Law School

Steve Johansen

Director of Lawyering

Professor of Law

Lewis & Clark Law School

Ken Chestek

Director, Externship Program

Assistant Director, Center for the Study of Written Advocacy

Professor of Law

University of Wyoming College of Law

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Robbins, Ruth Anne, author. | Johansen, Steve, author. | Chestek, Ken, author.

Title: Your client's story : persuasive legal writing / Ruth Anne Robbins, Distinguished Clinical Professor of Law, Rutgers Law School; Steve Johansen, Director of Lawyering, Professor of Law, Lewis & Clark Law School; Ken Chestek, Assistant Director, Legal Writing Program, Assistant Director, Center for the Study of Written Advocacy, Associate Professor of Law, University of Wyoming College of Law.

Description: 2nd edition. | New York : Wolters Kluwer, [2019] | Series: Aspen--Select Series | Includes index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018041459 | eISBN: 978-1-5438-0540-6

Subjects: LCSH: Legal composition. | Law--United States--Language. | Law--United States--Methodology. | LCGFT: Textbooks.

Classification: LCC KF250 .R625 2019 | DDC 808.06/634--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018041459

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Ruth Anne Robbins dedicates this book to her husband and daughters, who shared the writing journey with her: Steve, Shelby, and Gwen.

Steve Johansen dedicates this book to Lenore Honey Johansen. You are the hero of our story.

Ken Chestek dedicates this book to Robin Chestek, whose unfailing support and encouragement made this project possible. FFLA.

Summary of Contents

Contents

Acknowledgments

There are many people whom we need to thank, but the first are the three lawyers who wrote the appendices of this book while they were still in law school. They are Andrew Norcott Dodemaide (Rutgers Law School), William F. Hanna (Rutgers Law School), and Naima Solomon (Indiana University McKinney School of Law).

Others who contributed, materially or influentially, to this second edition include Toni Berres-Paul (Lewis & Clark), Victoria L. Chase (Rutgers), Brian J. Foley, Esq., Blair Gerold, Esq.,the Rocky Mountain Legal Writing Scholarship Group, and of course, Michael R. Smith (Wyoming).

There were many other people who provided immeasurable assistance, either by asking students to read early chapters or by supporting our work on the book. Those people include Sarah Adams (Arkansas), Bill Chin (Lewis & Clark), Jason K. Cohen (Arizona State), Alison Julien (Marquette), Derek Kiernan-Johnson (ColoradoBoulder), Allison Martin (Indiana University McKinney), Tracy McGaugh (Touro), Debby McGregor (Indiana University McKinney), Anne Villella (Lewis & Clark), Carol Wallinger (Rutgers), and Daryl Wilson (Lewis & Clark).

Like all books, this one has been many years, many consumed Moonstruck chocolates, and many stories in the making. This book is also the result of several years spent studying and discussing Applied Legal Storytelling, and we thank the Legal Writing Institute and all of the people who have been involved with the conferences that brought us together. We are especially indebted to our U.K. colleagues Robert McPeake (City University, London) and Erika Rackley (Durham), and their efforts to bring Applied Legal Storytelling to an international audience. We also are indebted to those who have provided us feedback on our background articlesso many people in legal writing have provided us support and encouragement that we cannot hope to thank them all individually.

Finally, to our students over the years, we thank you for giving us the opportunity to teach persuasive legal writing in this manner and to learn from you as well.

Prologue

Topeka, Kansas, 1950. World War II had ended five years ago. The country was turning to happier times. The Baby Boom was underway. Factories were turning out cars and refrigerators and a new device called a television. Prosperity reigned.

But not everyone was pleased with the status quo of 1950.

In September 1950, Linda Brown, an eight-year-old African-American child who lived in Topeka, Kansas, was ready to begin the third grade. Her first years of education had been spent at Monroe, an all-black school located about twenty-one blocks from the Brown home. In a modest neighborhood, the Monroe school building had been constructed in 1926. It was of brick in the Italian Renaissance style, well-cared for and a credit to the community where it was located. The Browns home was in a racially mixed neighborhood. The children of white and other nonblack families of the neighborhood attended Sumner School about seven blocks from the Brown residence. Named for abolitionist leader Charles Sumner, the first school on the Sumner site was initially for blacks only, but in 1885 it was designated for white students. The current building at Sumner was built in 1935. It was constructed of light-colored brick with a good deal of ornamentation. The testimony of the expert witness was that the Sumner classrooms were more spacious and the facilities more ample and in keeping with a good school situation. The academic programs at Monroe and Sumner were comparable. Bus transportation was provided for Linda and other Monroe students along a designated route. Linda boarded the bus at a pick-up station about seven blocks from her home. There was no shelter for waiting passengers, and to reach the pick-up station Linda and other black students had to walk through a railroad switchyard and cross Kansas Avenue, Topekas main commercial street, where the motor traffic was heavy. No such hazards were encountered by students walking to Sumner. As the 195051 school term was about to begin Oliver Brown, Lindas father, was concerned about his daughters safety and comfort, the inconvenience of her daily trip to and from Monroe School, and the quality of the educational opportunity afforded her by the Topeka school district. On the day appointed for her enrollment he led Linda to Sumner, the neighborhood school, and requested that she be admitted. The request was denied solely because the child was black and the rules of the board of education limited attendance at Sumner School to white, or approximately white, children. Linda continued to attend Monroe, but the events of that September morning commenced a series of happenings from which Linda Brown emerged as a celebrity and a folk heroine of the civil rights movement.Next page