ABSTRACT
The lawyer's ability to persuade an audience to make favorable mental connections and break unfavorable ones is at the heart of legal persuasion. And persuasion often requires the advocate to construct not just one connection but an entire network of relationships. To think most effectively about connecting with their readers and listeners, lawyers must understand more about their primary audiences and how those audiences observe, interpret, and decide. This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the key concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book. The book's purpose is first to emphasize the importance of understanding the master stories, stereotypical characters, and iconic images that already influence legal audiences by filtering and framing what they see and understand. In addition to stories shaping the facts for persuasive ends, the chapters remind advocates that all laws emerge from stories of conflicts and problems and that the way people tell law stories may influence their future interpretation and application.
