As an lawyer, I used to be educated to reside inside paperwork: case recordsdata, depositions, transcripts, contracts and limitless emails. As a novelist, I now reside inside fictional worlds. At first, these roles could appear miles aside. But once I sit right down to draft a chapter or a authorized argument, I’m reminded that each are in the end about storytelling.
My years within the courtroom, together with my service as an Military fight veteran, formed how I write. Regulation sharpened my precision; the navy cast my resilience. Fiction gave me a strategy to merge each. And on the middle of that bridge is a talent legal professionals typically underestimate: narrative craft.
Discovery is the clearest instance. Attorneys know the grind: a whole bunch of hours combing by information, highlighting a phrase right here, flagging an inconsistency there. Most of it can by no means seem in courtroom. However now and again you discover the one element that reframes your complete case. Writing a novel feels the identical. The primary draft is a large number of notes, analysis and false begins. The artwork is in choice—in slicing what doesn’t serve the story and lifting ahead what does. Each the lawyer and the writer curate which means from noise.
That curating talent formed my novel American Anne Frank, which follows a suburban household hiding undocumented immigrants. The story required me to sift by dozens of potential angles, simply as I might in discovery, till I discovered the emotional core. My navy fantasy novel Stonebreaker demanded the identical course of: figuring out which particulars about loyalty, survival and battle revealed the reality of the characters and the world. In each books, the teachings of discovery guided me.
However storytelling in regulation is about greater than proof. Each lawyer is aware of that profitable an argument takes greater than statutes and citations. Persuasion relies on balancing precision with humanity. A jury may respect logic, however it’s moved by narrative. Judges, too, reply to readability and cohesion. That’s why the strongest authorized briefs learn much less like a knowledge dump and extra like a narrative with stakes.
Cross-examination illustrates this overlap. Good cross is about pressure, pacing and revelation—the identical instruments writers use in dialogue. A witness hedges, contradicts or resists, and the lawyer brings these fractures into the sunshine. Characters in fiction behave the identical method. They conceal, deflect and conflict, and it’s in these moments that their humanity emerges. In Stonebreaker, I handled each character’s voice like a witness below questioning: credible, constant and revealing below strain.
The by line is straightforward: each regulation and writing demand credibility. A misplaced quotation can unravel a case; a hole character can collapse a narrative. Precision and humanity usually are not opposites—they’re allies. Essentially the most persuasive closing arguments are additionally probably the most human. Essentially the most enduring novels are additionally probably the most disciplined.
Too typically, younger attorneys are instructed to strip their writing of humanity in favor of objectivity. However the regulation is about folks. A short that frames a case as a narrative—of a enterprise betrayed, a household harmed, a group disrupted—lands in another way than one which reads like a guidelines of precedent. Fiction reminds us of that fact. Tales endure as a result of they converse to each thoughts and coronary heart.
That’s why inventive writing shouldn’t be a distraction from the apply of regulation however an enhancement. Each case has a starting, center and finish. Discovery is exposition. Motions are rising motion. Trial is climax. A case with no theme feels scattered. A case with a theme—justice, equity, accountability—feels coherent. Attorneys who assume like storytellers current their circumstances with extra readability and impression.
Once I left the Military for regulation and later regulation for fiction, I assumed I used to be transferring between separate worlds. However the longer I’ve written, the clearer it’s develop into: All three paths are linked. The Military taught me endurance. Regulation taught me precision. Fiction taught me empathy. Collectively, they remind me that whether or not in a courtroom or a novel, the last word query is identical: What story will endure?
For legal professionals, the lesson shouldn’t be merely that writing issues however that storytelling issues. Each deposition, each movement, each trial is a chance to form a story that will probably be remembered, not simply learn. Writers know this instinctively. Attorneys, too, ought to embrace it.
As a result of in the long run, the regulation is a narrative we inform about justice. And if we inform it effectively, it resonates far past the courtroom.
Patrick Camuñez is an Arizona-based novelist and a compliance lawyer whose work explores the intersection of regulation, historical past and social justice. He’s the writer of American Anne Frank, a recent reimagining of Anne Frank’s story set in opposition to trendy debates over immigration and civil rights.
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