Assignment 1 Background Readings "The Interview" by Lowell B. Komie

Assignment 2 "The Ice Horse" by Lowell B. Komie "Solo" by Lowell Komie "Cohen, Zelinski & Halloran" by Lowell Komie

Assignment 3 "The Cornucopia Julia K." "I'm Just an Associate . . . At a New York Firm" [the story is followed by the "Reflections" of two law professors which you need not read as part of the assignment] "Discovery"

Assignment 4 "Zig-Zag Stitiching and the Seamless Web" law review article by Marie Ashe (handout in class) [Elkins notes] "Dying Words" by Jerome Groopman, in The New Yorker, October 28, 2002 (handout in class) "The Space Traders' Solution" a story by Derrick Bell

Assignment 6 "Every Act Whatever of Man" another Corrington story & "Podhoretz Revisited" (the Lowell Komie story we did not discuss when assigned)

On the Nature of Narrative Jurisprudence

  What, Exactly, Is Narrative Jurisprudence?
Professor James R. Elkins, West Virginia University

  Narrative Resistance and the Struggle for Stories
Professor Kim Lane Scheppele, University of Pennsylvania Law School

  Law and Literature
William Domnarski, article in 27 Legal Studies Forum 109 (2003)

Legal Storytelling: A Strand of Narrative Jurisprudence

 Narrative and the Appellate Opinion
An article by David Ray Papke and Kathleen H. McManus, Professors of Law, Marquette University. Professor Papke published one of the early collections of articles and essays on legal narrative, Narrative and the Legal Discourse (1991) and has written extensively on law, literature, film, and popular culture. [See also: David Ray Papke, Discharge as Denouement: Appreciating the Storytelling of Appellate Opinions, 40 J. Legal Educ. 145 (1990)]

Reading Lawyer Stories: Notes by James R. Elkins

 An Introduction to Story

Stories: Lowell B. Komie–Legal Education

 "The Interview"
25 Legal Studies Forum 11 (2001). Komie, now in his seventies, is still practicing law, and still writing. [See: Commentary on Komie Stories and an Interview]

  "The Ice Horse"
25 Legal Studies Forum 29 (2001)

Stories: Komie–Legal Practice

  "Solo"
25 Legal Studies Forum 45 (2001)

  "Cohen, Zelinski & Halloran"
25 Legal Studies Forum 133 (2001)

  "The Cornucopia Julia K."
25 Legal Studies Forum 71 (2001)

 "Podhoretz Revisited"
25 Legal Studies Forum 145 (2001)

Two Ethics Story

  "I'm Just an Associate . . . At a New York Firm"
Lawrence J. Fox, Adjunct Professor, University of Pennsylvania Law School

  "Discovery"
An excerpt from Cameron Stracher's Double Billing: A Young Lawyer's Tale of Greed, Sex, Lies and the Pursuit of a Swivel Chair 108-130 (New York, William Morrow, 1998)

Stories in Legal Scholary Writing

  Marie Ashe, Zig-Zag Stitching and the Seamless Web: Thoughts on "Reproduction and the Law, 13 Nova L. Rev. 355 (1987)

Supplementary Reading: Kathryn Abrams, Hearing the Call of Stories, 79 Calif. L. Rev. 971 (1991)

Stories & a Critique of Professional Training

  Jerome Groopman, Annals of Medicine: Dying Words, The New Yorker, October 28, 2002, p. 62

A Story: Derrick Bell

"The Space Traders' Solution"
in The Power of Narrative, 23 Legal Studies Forum 315 (1999); originally published in Derrick Bell, Faces at the Bottom of the Well: The Permanence of Racism (1992)

Stories: John William Corrington

 "Pleadings"
This John William Corrington (1932-1988) story was republished in 26 Legal Studies Forum 211 (2002). Corrington was a published poet, novelist, professor of English literature, and screenwriter, when he took up the study of law at Tulane University at age 40. Corrington wrote, in my view, some of the best "legal fiction" of the 20th century. [Corrington Photo] [For more about Corrington, his life and his writing, see: James R. Elkins, A Great Gift: On Reading John William Corrington]

 "Every Act Whatever of Man"
25 Legal Studies Forum 245 (2002)

Lowell Komie:

 A Tribute to Komie and His Stories

 An Interview with Lowell B. Komie

 More Lowell Komie Stories

John William Corrington:

 A Great Gift: On Reading John William Corrington

 More John William Corrington Stories

Legal Education: The Story Perspective

 The Transformation of Self
An essay on legal education drawing on journal accounts of students at West Virginia University

 Scott Turow's One L: First Year at Harvard Law School

 Legal Education as Story

 Troubled Beginnings: Reflections on Becoming a Lawyer
Essay by James R. Elkins, 26 U. Memphis L.R. 303 (1996)

Using Stories to Teach (Ethics and Such)

 In Parables: Teaching Through Parables
Professor John J. Bonsignore, 12 Legal Studies Forum (1988)

 Telling Stories in School: Using Stories to Teach Legal Ethics
Professor Carrie Menkel-Meadow, 69 Fordham Law Review 787 (2000)

Using Stories to Live

 Johnny Mack Brown
7 Tex. J. Women & L. 123 (1997)

Another Story From Cameron Stracher

 "A Jew Among the Norse"
in Cameron Stracher, The Laws of Return 158-174 (New York: William Morrow and Company, 1996)

Background--the Derrick Bell Story

 The Final Report: Harvard's Affirmative Action Allegory
      Another Derrick Bell story  

Narrative Jurisprudence: Books

 Law's Stories: Narrative and Rhetoric in the Law
book review by Professor Ira L. Strauber (Department of Political Science)

  Law Stories: Law, Meaning, and Violence
book review by Professor Susan Silbey, Department of Sociology, Wellesley College

Narrative Jurisprudence: E-Texts

 Narratives & Commentary
The best (indeed only) comprehensive collection of online legal narratives and commentaries is the e-text collection amassed by the good folks at the Tarlton Law Library, University of Texas

Beyond Narrative Jurisprudence

Other Schools of Contemporary Jurisprudence

 Contemporary Jurisprudence Web Resources

Narrative Medicine

 Literature, Arts, and Medicine Database

 

These readings were prepared for use in a six-session presentation (October/November, 2002) for a Jurisprudence Course taught by Professor James McLaughlin, College of Law, West Virginia University. Professor James R. Elkins.

Posted October 20, 2002. Email Professor Elkins