Narrative and Metaphor in the Law

It has long been recognized that court trials in the common law system, both criminal and civil, operate around pairs of competing narratives told by opposing advocates. In recent years, however, it has increasingly been argued that narrative flows in many directions and through every form of legal theory and practice. Interest in the part played by metaphor in the law, including metaphors for the law, and for many standard concepts in legal practice, has also been strong, though research under the metaphor banner has been much more fragmentary. In this book, for the first time, a distinguished group of legal scholars, collaborating with specialists from cognitive theory, journalism, rhetoric, social psychology, criminology, and legal activism, explore how narrative and metaphor are both vital to the legal process. Together, they examine topics including concepts of law, legal persuasion, human rights law, gender in the law, innovations in legal thinking, legal activism, creative work around the law, and public debate around crime and punishment.

Michael Hanne founded the Comparative Literature Programme at the University of Auckland, New Zealand and directed it until his retirement in 2010. He has published 'Binocular Vision: Narrative and Metaphor in Medicine', in Genre (2011) and Warring with Words: Narrative and Metaphor in Politics (2014). Robert Weisberg is Edwin E. Huddleson, Jr Professor of Law at Stanford University, California. He also founded and now serves as faculty co-director of the Stanford Criminal Justice Center (SCJC). He is co-author (with Guyora Binder) of the book Literary Criticisms of Law (2000).