Law, Literature and the Importance of Narrative to the Legal Education

• Author: Garret Sammon
• Position: LLB (Ling Franc) IV Trinity College Dublin
• Pages: 94-105

[2011] COLR

94

LAW, LITERATURE AND THE IMPORTANCE OF NARRATIVE TO

THE LEGAL EDUCATION

Garret Sammon*

A INTRODUCTION

The image of the lawyer as the hommes des lettres or ‗man of letters‘ is no longer an element of

contemporary cultural imagination. Until the latter part of the 19th century the lawyer was

considered a professional interested not only in law but also literature, politics and philosophy.

Voltaire, for instance, trained in law but used literature as a means of polemic. His writings

engaged with civil rights, democracy in France and theories of government through the media of

poetry and prose.

1

Montesquieu also trained as a lawyer but engaged with philosophy and

political thought throughout his career.

2

This was central to the conception of the law both in

Europe and the Americas. Law was not considered an autonomous discipline, but rather

something more akin to an art form. Literary allusion and philosophical musing were

interspersed with deductive logic in judicial decisions. It was not until law came to be imagined

as a body of rules to be applied to particular factual situations in an ascetic fashion, that it came

to be seen as wholly separate to the arts. Law became akin to a science and subject to its own

insular discourse.

3

But this vision did not go unchallenged for long. Calls for the inclusion of the

social sciences

4

or literature

5

within the legal curriculum surfaced in the early years of the 20th

century. Members of the judiciary have also frequently taken a stand against this autonomy of

the law by quoting poetry and prose in their written decisions to illustrate and support their

arguments.

6

The Law and Literature movement is one element of this revolt. It grew to prominence in

the USA in the 1970s. Since its birth a large number of sub-currents of thought have arisen

within this field. This article will focus on the narrative strand of this movement which sees the

law as an entity constructed of stories told by various actors in the legal system. It will argue that

an understanding of narrative technique and literary interpretation is vital to modern legal

education. Literature and narrative must benefit from an integrated teaching method in all

modules of the typical law school curriculum and particularly in the new and increasingly

* LLB (Ling Franc) IV Trinity College Dublin.

1

P Arabeyne JL Halpérin and J Krynen Dictionnaire Historique des Juristes Français du XIIe Siècle au XXe Siècle

(Dicos Poche 2006).

2

ibid.

3

JB Baron ‗Law, Literature and the Problems of Interdisciplinarity‘ (1998-1999) 108 Yale LJ 1059. T he author

briefly outlines the changes in the co nception of law brought about by the Dean of Harvard Law School Christopher

Columbus Langdell in the latter part of the 19th century. This autono mous view of the law is arguably most prevalent

in Civil Law tradition countries, where due to the strict tradition of syllogistic judgment style, there is very little

room for tangential supporting arguments. See Lassar ‘Judicial (Self) Portraits – Judicial Discourse in the French

Legal System’ (1994-1995) 104 Yale LJ 1325 specifically in relation to France on this point.

4

WD Lewis ‗The Social Sciences as the Basis of Legal Education‘ (1912-1913) 61 U Pa Law Review 539.

5

B Cardozo ‗Law and Literature‘ (1938-1939) 48 Yale LJ 489.

6

W N Osborough Literature, Judges and the Law (Four Courts Press 2008) for a co mpendium o f such citations.

Judges have not felt restricted to what co uld be called ‗classical‘ l iterature for, as this work shows, quotations have

been taken from such diverse sources as the Bible, Homer, Shakespeare and even the Harry Potter series of books.