In this short video analyzing the brilliant movie “Anatomy of a Murder,” The Nerdwriter captures why STORY is fundamental to the work of a trial lawyer: “[W]hat does the law look like? Well, it looks a lot like narrative. Each lawyer is trying to carve out a story from the evidence.... And in their efforts to place each fact in their desired context, the importance of words becomes more and more and more apparent.... Watching from this unique perspective, this movie about a murder trial transforms into a granular study about the construction of stories, how language itself, how every word, is loaded with history, and when you’re choosing a word you’re choosing it’s history too, all the stories that go with it.... The courtroom is a zone where all of these mechanics of narrative play out.... Anatomy of a Murder zooms in to show how story is latent in language, intonation and gesture and it zooms out to show how story is embedded in, and a fundamental part of, the practice of law."
My love of STORY also explains why I am a playwright.