Facts: Context and Meaning

©Charles Nesson

The twenty screens that follow will prepare you for classroom discussion of the advocacy skills and associated ethical questions of working with facts.They are organized as follows: Section 1 - The Necker Cube; Section 2 - Narrative Argument / Analytic Argument: Section 3 - Using Narrative Argument to Promote Favorable Results in Analytic Argument; and Section 4 - Conclusion.

Section 1. The Necker Cube

The ability to use facts skillfully is fundamental to both argument and analysis. In order to accomplish the legal consequence she wants, an advocate will typically first tell the story of the case, her purpose being to predispose the decisionmaker toward her upcoming argument. Likewise, a lawyer analyzing a case wants to understand every possible different telling of the facts in order to understand the points that can be made from them. This allows her, as an advocate, a judge, or a law student, (1) to choose her position, (2) support it with the facts, and, (3) to anticipate points that will have to be defended.

Facts are like the Necker Cube.

Can you see the cube in two ways?
   Yes    ||    No