AALLFeb2014:1

1/13/14

3:59 PM

Page 27

The Art of Storytelling

Teaching practice skills through storytelling

By Elizabeth Christian

here were many things I wanted

to achieve when I taught my first
Advanced Legal Research Class in the
spring of 2013. I wanted the students
to learn how to perform legal research,
yes, but I also wanted them to learn how
to do it in the context of practicing law.
I wanted them to see the big picture
and to care about it. Associates dont
perform legal research in a bottle. There
is always a client involved whose case
and outcome depends on the research
that an associate performs. Being skilled
at issue spotting and performing related
legal research is important. These
practice skills can make or break a new
associate. And law librarians teaching
Advanced Legal Research are in a prime
position to impart the knowledge and
skills to make a difference in the careers
of many budding new associates.
So I knew I wanted to teach practice
skills, but how? I started thinking back
on my own career and decided to create
the class that I wish had been available to
prepare me to research and practice law.
Im also the former director of an IP
Law Clinic, so I decided to take a
pseudo-clinical approach. At the same
time I read an article in INC. Magazine
about how the best teachers use
storytelling to teach their lessons. The
article explained that the students are
entertained and remember the story and
its related lessons. Great! I love stories!
This could be fun.
I decided to tell the stories of
potential clients. First, I would explain
various legal resources and demonstrate
to the students how to use them. I would
spend time familiarizing them with and
showing them how to use both print and
2014 Elizabeth Christian images iStockphoto.com

online
resources.
After I achieved
this, I would tell a
story and then ask
the students to show
me what they could
find. I set out with the
goal of using stories that
not only entertained and
simulated the practice of law
but also taught empathy, issue
spotting, and critical thinking
skills. This was a tall order, but I felt
it was doable.
The best stories teach lessons, are
memorable, relatable, and could have
happened to you or someone you know.
Not all legal work is interesting, so I
deliberately selected stories that were
interesting, funny, or compelling.
I told the students stories about
clients and what had brought them into
the law office where the students would
one day be working. These people were
looking for help. Something bad had
happened. They had been wronged, and
their problems were keeping them up
at night. They were stressed. Their lives
had been turned upside down, and they
had come to the law office looking for
a solution. They needed to be listened
to and for their problems to be cared
about. This is where I began to stress the
importance of empathy. Bedside manner
is important, not only to doctors, but
also to attorneys who want to build and
keep their client base.
Students were required to turn in
their assignments in Quick Memo
format, exactly like I did when I
practiced law. All of the memos were
addressed to me as Partner, and I read
and graded them as if I was reviewing
the work of an associate who I was
considering hiring. I provided feedback
exactly as if I were a partner and this was
an actual client and a real case. I had
more than one student tell me that these
exercises were the closest thing they had
in law school to actually practicing law,
other than Emorys two weeks of Trial
Techniques. I had another student tell
me that he thought my class should be
mandatory.
I told the students that the quality of
their writing mattered too. Other people
would be reading their work. It would go
in the clients file. Even distant attorneys

might read their letters and memos.

For instance, I practiced law in South
Carolina, but I once got a call from a
Chicago attorney who had read a letter
I wrote when it had been turned over for
Discovery in another case. He called me
to compliment my letter on being one of
best ones he had ever read. Interestingly
enough, I had told a story in the letter.
My client was David. The plaintiff was
Goliath. It worked for my client, and
I still remember that call from Chicago
and the lesson it taught me.

Come Sit Closer.

Let Me Tell You A Tale
Storytelling comes easier for some
people, but anyone can become a
storyteller. Inspiration for a story can
come from anywhere. It just requires
a new way of thinking and looking at
the world around you. Start with your
own life and your own story. I once
saw a greeting card that said Your Life
Has a Plot, and its true. Your life has a
beginning, a middle, and it will have an
end. Some day we will look back on our
lives and decide whether we misspent
them or not. Elderly people already
know this because they can look at their
lives in retrospect. They look back and
see what could have happened and did
not. They see the roads not taken, the
turning points, glory moments,
disappointments, and betrayals. At the
end of ones life it all becomes clear.
Emerson said a life unexamined is not
worth living, but I ask you: must we
be old to begin examining our lives?
When you start to think like this,
you will see stories everywhere. It helps
to read Richard Russo or listen to
bluegrass music, both of which focus on
the art of storytelling. It also helps to
volunteer or spend time around older
people, listening to their life stories.
Tragedies, near misses, and joys do not
only happen in novels and movies. They
happen to the person behind you in the
checkout line, the person who used to
live down the street.
People remember stories because they
involve visualizing those involved and
what happened to them. Scientists say
our memories work best when attached
to images. Translating that into a
classroom environment, students will
remember a story and then remember
AALL Spectrum

February 2014

27

AALLFeb2014:1

1/13/14

3:59 PM

Page 28

the lesson it seeks to teach. Thats how

fables work. When is the last time you
heard the Tortoise and the Hare? If you
dont have any children, it may have
been decades, but I bet you still
remember the story and its lesson.
Stories can also teach critical
thinking. For instance, you can use a
story to show students that things they
know, have always known, and never
have questioned may be untrue or
incorrect. Assumptions often lead to
satisficing. Students and mediocre lawyers
sometimes settle on an answer that will
work but may not be the best one. They
are satisficing. When you use a story that
teaches critical thinking, you are showing
students why it is important to seek the
best answer. You are not merely pointing
out that students assumptions may be
wrong; you are asking them to think,
research, and report back their findings.
There is an aspect of discovery and,
possibly, epiphany. People can forget
having something pointed out to them
all the time, but few people ever forget
an epiphany.
For my class, I told some of the
stories and wrote some of them. I often
made students figure out the cause of
action for a case. This is how you
teach issue spotting.
Clients come in and
tell you their
stories. They
dont say,
This is an
adverse
possession
case. This is
something you
have to figure out for
yourself. I taught both
federal and state law research, but the
stories often involved Georgia law
because we had both print and online
resources available for the students to
use.

Gone with the Wind

I also took into account the interests of
the students in my class. I told one story
and had an assignment of special interest
to the students who wanted to practice
family law. I told a sordid tale of a
modern day love triangle among
Melanie, Scarlett, and an Ashley Wilkes
gone bad. I incorporated the successful
cheating techniques of professional
baseball players that I had read about in
Jose Consecos book Juiced. The students
were the associates and their boss was a
tax attorney who knew nothing about
family law. He had been asked by a
friend to handle a messy divorce and
was clueless but felt he could not say no.
He ran into the associates office and said
What do we do?! Quick, look it up!
I used an image of William H. Macy in
the role of a used car dealer from the
movie Fargo to depict the boss.
28

AALL Spectrum

February 2014

The students had to research the

grounds for divorce, whether adultery
could be proven by circumstantial
evidence, the significance for Melanie
if she was found to have condoned the
behavior, whether or not Melanie could
force Ashley to cover her attorneys fees,
and whether or not Melanies nagging
and criticism could constitute cruel
treatment in Georgia (it can).
The students had to perform the
research, analyze what they found
(always in terms of how it affected the
clients case), advise the partner as to
possible options for going forward, and
inform the partner about any weaknesses
in the plaintiff s case. My class was hard,
but I told the students it would be better
to make their mistakes with me than
when their jobs were on the line.

The Best Intentions

To teach the students how to use digests
on Westlaw Next I used a true story, a
mystery about a quirky old lady I knew
named Aunt Betty. I called it The Best
Intentions Story.
Aunt Betty was 80 years old and
used to ride around on a tractor
with her pet goat named
Molly Patricia, both
of them wearing
matching sun hats.
She also, being the
hip lady that
she was, had
The Clapper
installed on all
the lamps
in her
house. Her
little dog Archie
had discovered that he
had quite a bit of power and could turn
the lights in a room off and on over and
over again with his bark, which he did
anytime Aunt Betty had company over.
She would serve her guests Pabst Blue
Ribbon in antique Cranberry glasses,
and every time Archie would turn the
lights on and off, shed declare, Isnt
he just the cutest thing!
One summer, however, Aunt Betty
became depressed. She was still in good
health, but her friends had started dying.
It is very hard to outlive your friends
she told anyone who would listen.
A neighbor lady decided to cheer Aunt
Betty up and brought over a basket full
of yellow lab puppies for the afternoon.
She brought tons of toys and rawhide for
the puppies to play with and chew on
while she and Aunt Betty petted the
puppies and were entertained. It was a
great afternoon, and Aunt Betty laughed
and smiled like she hadnt in weeks, but
later that night she fell deathly ill. She
spiked a high fever, and her only relative,
an estranged niece she was no longer
close to, decided that since Aunt Betty
was old and had already lived her life, it

was better to keep her comfortable and

let nature take its course. The doctors
who had never met Aunt Betty before
agreed, and no efforts were made to
discover the source of the fever. She died
in less than two days.
Do not underestimate the power
of shock value. It worked for Flannery
OConnor and her stories. I asked my
students to think about what might
have killed Aunt Betty. Most had no
idea, but one student yelled out, It was
the rawhide! which was my best guess
too. Rawhide can carry salmonella, and
people should always wash their hands
after handling it. We spent the next
portion of the class using digests both
in print and on WestlawNext to search
for product liability cases and whether
there were any pertaining to tainted pet
products in particular.

You Cant Own All the Land

Around You
Humor can be as useful as shock value.
I told another story that I called You
Cant Own All the Land Around You.
In the story, a family in an upscale
neighborhood starts a building project
at the end of their driveway, close to the
side door of a client, Hyacinths, house.
Hyacinth is an older lady who still wears
white gloves, requires smelling salts, and
prefers that everything be just so.
To the clients horror, she realizes the
building project is actually an outhouse,
which the next-door neighbors start
visiting multiple times a day and
emptying in their back
yard. Hyacinth has
discovered that the
neighbors are big fans
of a reality show about
harsh living in the
backwoods of Alaska.
She has tried to talk to
them, but they refuse
to part with their
new ideals, declaring,
Indoor plumbing
is for sissies! Were
getting back to nature,
and you should too!
I then asked the students to identify
the issues and possible causes of action
their client could pursue. After a
brainstorming session, we researched
zoning laws, as well as cases and
ordinances using techniques that the
students had learned earlier in the class.

Everything is Illuminated
As I said earlier, inspiration for your
stories can come from anywhere. In the
fall of 2012, I went to a book festival in
Decatur, Georgia, and heard many
authors talk about their books. The
message that one of them told was
disturbing. Armon Neel, the official
pharmacist for AARP, talked about how

AALLFeb2014:1

1/13/14

3:59 PM

Page 29

100,000 people die each year from

adverse drug reactions. Many of these
people are elderly or sick, so their deaths
are not questioned or explored, but some
of the people are young or otherwise
healthy. He caught my interest . . . I had
to know more.
For my classs Final Project, I chose
to tell the story of the most famous
medical malpractice case youve probably
never heard of. It changed the practice of
medicine in the U.S., but it is yesterdays
news and seldom talked about now. The
case involved a young girl in New York.
I chose one featuring a young person
so that my students could
relate. It could just as easily
have happened to them,
and that thought is
frightening and
compelling to most
people.
Libby Zion was a
healthy 18-year-old girl
who went to the hospital
with flu-like symptoms. She
was treated with a drug effective for
shivering that is so common that weve
all heard of it and almost certainly know
people who have taken it. She died
within hours of the injection from an
adverse drug reaction. When Libby had
first started reacting to the drug and
became agitated and later hysterical,
she was not reexamined, but was
instead placed in physical restraints and
sedated. The residents treating her were
overworked, covering dozens of patients
and receiving very little supervision. This
case changed the way resident doctors are
trained at teaching hospitals and places
limits on how many hours they can
work, etc.
In class, I changed the facts a bit
and made the research questions I asked
a part of the story. I called the young
woman Abby, the sweetest name I could
think of. I specifically wrote it to be a
page turner. The students literally had
to turn the page to see what happened
to her. They were horrified. A few
gasped. Two cried. They all cared.
Abbys father wanted justice for his
daughter. He also wanted laws changed,
but in my fact pattern he first had to
address the constraints and realities of
tort reform before he could file suit.
The students were accordingly required
to research current tort reform laws
and the legislative history of why the
laws were passed. Tort reform is a
controversial topic, but controversial
topics teach critical thinking and make
aha moments possible.

Say It Aint So: Final Project

Epiphany Part I
The Final Project required the students
to research, understand, and explain what
tort reform is and how it affected Abbys
father and his case. Tort Reform makes it

harder for plaintiffs to file suit. It

makes it a risky endeavor. They may
be betting the farm on an unpredictable
jury. Plaintiffs may have to pay the
defendants legal fees if they lose. In
Georgia and in many other states, it
also lowers the standard of care for
emergency room doctors and workers
to gross negligence, holding them
liable for deaths and injuries only if the
plaintiffs show a failure to exercise even
a slight degree of care.
Since 2005, there has only been one
successful emergency room malpractice
case in Georgia, and most attorneys
consider emergency room workers
immune from suit. Most
students have heard of tort
reform, but they dont realize
it could affect them
personally and give them
no recourse. I had them
research gross negligence
and see if there was anything
they could do for the father in
the case I presented. One of the
students wanted to give up and came
to my office saying there was no hope.
I would not let her give up. This is
based on an actual case, I reminded her.
Would you tell the real Abbys father
there was no hope? Keep looking and
dont stop thinking of solutions. If the
door is closed, find a window.

The Emperors New Clothes:

Final Project Epiphany Part II
In the Final Project I also required
research and analysis that went against
the grain and common opinion. Multiple
politicians have stood on soap boxes
and said tort reform is necessary to stop
frivolous personal injury lawsuits and
thereby lower the cost of health care.
Everyone knows that getting medical
care in the United States is expensive.
And most people also know that one
of the main reasons for this is because
doctors are sued all the time and have
very high insurance premiums because of
it. Right? But, what if this was actually
not true? What if people had been suing
less in recent years and something else
entirely was to blame for the high cost
of med-mal insurance? What if there was
something more insidious going on and
only a few worn-down senators had ever
tried to point it out to the public?
I used this particular story to
teach and test critical thinking and to
emphasize that things are not always
what they seem. This is true even for
things that you have known all your
life and for ideas that everyone else
thinks are great. To be a good attorney,
you must learn to think critically. You
must not take things at face value or
based on assumptions, even well-touted
ones.
In the Final Project I made it
clear what the possible issues were (to

Test YOUR Critical Thinking!

Guess the mystery
animal in this photo!
Write down the first
thing that pops into
your mind, and visit
tinyurl.com/mtnvd3r
to see if you are
correct.

view the project with the complete

instructions that the students were given,
visit tinyurl.com/kwwypu8). I chose a
controversial topic that students might
feel strongly about because engaging
passion and emotions can make for
memorable teaching moments. The Final
Project model can also be shortened and
made easier for homework assignments
using all different kinds of stories. You
also can visit tinyurl.com/lv3udzw to
view the written portion of my similarly
designed Gone with the Wind Homework
Assignment, which can be used as a
model as well.

The Results
There was no stated length requirement
for the Final Project. I wanted to see
what the students would discover and
find relevant. Coupled with their writing
style, I was amazed with the results.
Many of them found and thought of
things that had not even occurred to me.
With some of them, I thought to myself,
I would hire you right now! Several
of them thanked me when they were
later studying for the Bar. They felt
more confident in their research abilities.
They knew better what would be
expected of them once they started
their jobs and that they would be able
to handle the work.
I used my Advanced Legal Research
Class as a vehicle to teach not only legal
research but also practice skills using a
pseudo-clinical approach. I designed my
own class model and used stories to help
reinforce my message of finding the best
answer and thinking creatively. The
stories I used were entertaining, but
they also achieved multiple instructional
goals. Librarians are in a good position
to help teach students practice skills.
What we know is of value. Waiting on
the sidelines can take years. Sometimes
you just have to take the ball and run
with it.
Elizabeth Christian
(elizabeth.christian@
emory.edu), Assistant
Law Librarian for
Reference, Emory Law
Library, Atlanta
AALL Spectrum

February 2014

29