Law and literature

In this unit, you will examine how core legal skills can be sharpened through an understanding of literary techniques. Lawyers work with stories: they listen to clients, interpret competing narratives of events, and construct persuasive accounts of what happened. You will explore narrative capacities central to legal practice, including crafting persuasive accounts, listening closely to the stories others tell, recognising different perspectives, and exercising imaginative empathy in legal reasoning. These capacities are examined through literary forms such as plays, memoirs, fiction, and songs. By studying  literary texts alongside legal materials, you will examine how stories operate within the law and how attention to narrative craft can strengthen legal practice.