Rhetorical Processes and Legal Judgments
How Language and Arguments Shape Struggles for Rights and Power

This detailed analysis offers new perspectives on rhetoric and law from distinguished scholars.

Austin Sarat (Edited by)

9781316609026, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 23 November 2017

157 pages
15 x 23 x 0.9 cm, 0.25 kg

'… this volume brings together strong essays upon a broad range of topics … Despite being focused primarily upon U.S. law and society, these essays will be of note for anyone concerned with arguing for civil rights, and more broadly, with the development of law.' James Campbell, SCOLAG Legal Journal

Over the last several decades legal scholars have plumbed law's rhetorical life. Scholars have done so under various rubrics, with law and literature being among the most fruitful venues for the exploration of law's rhetoric and the way rhetoric shapes law. Today, new approaches are shaping this exploration. Among the most important of these approaches is the turn toward history and toward what might be called an 'embedded' analysis of rhetoric in law. Historical and embedded approaches locate that analysis in particular contexts, seeking to draw our attention to how the rhetorical dimensions of legal life works in those contexts. Rhetorical Processes and Legal Judgments seeks to advance that mode of analysis and also to contribute to the understanding of the rhetorical structure of judicial arguments and opinions.

The relevance of rhetoric: an introduction Austin Sarat
1. From 'equality before the law' to 'separate but equal': legal rhetoric, legal history and Roberts v. Boston (1849) Eric Slauter
2. The civlizing hand of law: defending the legal process in the civil rights era Christopher W. Schmidt
3. The evolving rhetoric of gay rights and same-sex marriage debate Teresa Godwin Phelps
4. The rhetoric of precedent Bernadette Meyler
5. Alternative perspectives on legal rhetoric: persuasion, invitation and argument Linda L. Berger
Afterword. Use your words: rhetoric as absence of law, rhetoric as essence of law Adam Steinman.

Subject Areas: Courts & procedure [LNAA], Legal history [LAZ], Jurisprudence & philosophy of law [LAB]