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By Michael D. Murray*

Introduction

A. Accommodating Multiculturalism in Legal Education and Law Practice by Using Visual Techniques

Legal education and law practice presents law professors and attorneys with the task of communicating the law to increasingly large audiences of LL.M. and J.D. students, clients, jurors, and other decision makers who are not native English speakers and do not share the same culture, history, or social context of those who traditionally dominated law school classrooms in the United States.[1] This is not an insignificant observation, because most of rhetoric[2]—which is to say, communication[3]—depends on understanding language,[4] narratives,[5] sense-memories and their effect on the interpretation of metaphors,[6] and archetypes[7] to construct knowledge and that will lead to persuasion or to mastery of the information. The methods of instruction and argumentation designed for traditional, mainstream audiences and the verbal-oriented conceptions of rhetoric and narrative reasoning that support these methods will be less effective when used to communicate with the new, diverse, and multicultural audiences in law school and legal practice.[8] The choices are to stay the course or take on the new challenge by bridging the gaps in communication.

This development of a multicultural audience coincides with changes in how all audiences receive and process information visually.[9] People in the contemporary world are living in a time of multimedia delivery and consumption of information and entertainment, and almost all media has a visual component. Visual media is the norm in day-to-day communication, and the media most directly supplanted by visual media are static, verbal, textual media—in short, the printed word.[10]

This Article discusses the scholarship of popular culture, cognitive studies and brain science, data visualization studies, modern argument theory in rhetoric, the rapid development of technology in the production of documents, and technology in the reading and reception of documents,[11] which all point to one outcome: the tools of legal education and law practice must become more visual by following principles of visual legal rhetoric and visual narrativity.[12] Visual has become the “new normal” in communication, and legal rhetorical communication in law school and law practice must not let itself fall behind the times.

B. Visuals Bridge Gaps in Text

The law books, office memoranda, and legal briefs of tomorrow will likely have color, graphics, photographs, embedded videos, active links, depictions, and diagrammatical elements; the instruments of legal practice will, in short, be highly visual.[13] This “tomorrow” is in the very near future. The confidence of this prediction is bolstered by the research and scholarship of a wide range of disciplines that converge in one locus: law teaching materials and legal briefs will—and should—become a visual presentation of legal rhetoric and narrativity,[14] thereby fulfilling the professional responsibility of professors and attorneys to use the best practices to represent the interests of their students and clients.

Although the convergence in circumstances leading to a more visual presentation of legal matters has lessons for all areas of legal education and law practice, this Article focuses on the creation of materials to communicate with non-native English speakers and persons with diverse cultural backgrounds. In addition to law schools’ increased attention to the enrollment of international LL.M. students, law schools also continue to diversify their student bodies. Further, as the economic downturn broadens the applicant pool, the population of multicultural J.D. law students is growing in number.[15] With diversity comes challenges in language skills and gaps in cultural knowledge and experience, which can alter how communication transpires in the law school classroom and beyond. This Article suggests a means to bridge those gaps through attention to visual rhetoric.

I. The Power of Visual Communication

The assertion that one picture can replace a thousand words is hardly new.[16] But the question of when or why a visual medium should replace a thousand words of legal discourse is more complicated. Can (or should) a law professor or attorney eliminate the need for several pages of narrative reasoning by using a graphical visualization of the communication—a cartoon, a painting, a photograph, a model, or another form of artistic rendering? Will the legal writing discourse community of professors, judges, practitioners, and legal scholars readily accept graphical work as a substitute for, or substantial supplement of, traditional textual legal rhetoric?

The literature on visual representations in the law has touched on many topics, including: (1) the law’s lackluster presentation of the law[17] using images at trial[18] and in appellate briefs and judicial opinions,[19] as well as the legal field’s lackluster management of popular culture’s effect on the nomos;[20] (2) evidentiary issues concerning photographs, videos, and visuals;[21] (3) cognitive studies and brain science supporting the use of visuals;[22] (4) law and data visualization;[23] (5) modern technology in drafting briefs that converges with the modern phenomena of accessing and reading briefs on electronic devices;[24] and (6) the mushrooming topic of narrativity and storytelling in legal work.[25] The literature culminates in a discussion supporting the creation of law school materials and legal documents that reflect the need for visual legal communication. Cognitive studies and brain science continually demonstrate the advantages of speed and efficiency of visual rhetorical elements over purely verbal communication.[26] Moreover, socio-epistemic and law and society studies affirm that as modern culture becomes increasingly visual, discourse of every kind must follow suit.[27]

Visual rhetoric is the use of visual representations to communicate, persuade, and construct knowledge.[28] Narrativity is the shared force behind narrative reasoning and applied legal storytelling[29] that focuses legal writing on the tools that best communicate a client’s situation—the client’s story, condition, circumstances—along with the “story” of the legal situation in the development, growth, and meaning of the law itself.[30] Communicating the story of the law and the story of the client to various audiences is an essential part of legal education and law practice.

Visual rhetorical devices fill a gap in communication and comprehension because they work almost immediately to communicate ideas, attain the audience’s belief in the ideas communicated, and thus persuade the audience of the truth and propriety of the speaker’s communication. Visual imagery is not only faster than words, it is better than words. Brain science demonstrates that images allow greater perception, comprehension, and retention of certain kinds of information.[31] Visual rhetoric has an unusual advantage over verbal works: visuals, such as photographs and videos, generally are perceived by audiences as “showing the truth,” as opposed to making an appeal to persuade or manipulate the audience.[32] Further, “[t]he power of images comes not just from the emotions they evoke, but also from the linked feature that they are hard to see as arguments: they persuade without overt appeals to rhetoric.”[33] Because “every image has a purpose, ‘the most general claims of the discourse are a kind of disclaimer, an assertion of neutrality; in short, the overall function of photographic discourse is to render itself transparent.’”[34]

II. Visual Communication Across Cultural and Language Barriers

Visual rhetorical devices can be more effective than purely verbal devices in communicating underlying meanings with audiences who have difficulty processing metaphors, narratives, or archetypical story forms because of cultural differences or language barriers.

Consider the following, non-law-oriented example: Can a person put together a “ready-to-assemble” item manufactured in a foreign country using only a verbal instruction sheet composed in that foreign language?[35]

A person who reads and speaks that language might say, yes. Others with a craven desire to translate word-for-word the foreign words into a native language might enjoy the challenge. The rest of us would answer no. But could you assemble the following items if you had the visual instruction manual right in front of you?

One might not want to wait until Christmas Eve to try assembling such an item, but the lack of words does not bar communicating the various tasks of assembly if the communication is done visually. It is evident from the practice of manufacturers who include one diagram or picture in the product’s box, instead of a dozen or more verbal translations, that visuals accomplish communication where verbal communication is inadequate.

The following images were taken from foreign, non-English language media. What is shown in the images? Can a decent narrative for the scene be depicted without captions?

Granted, with these examples, communication is assisted by the reader’s personal bias of naïve realism—the bias or heuristic that defaults human visual perception to believe that what is before our eyes is actually true. This bias also applies to the viewing of highly representational media, whereby viewers will believe that representational media, such as photographs and video, also depict reality.[36] Without some additional warning or signal that trickery is occurring, viewers tend to believe the truth of the depiction simply because they can see it for themselves. Audiences—from lay people to the Justices of the United States Supreme Court—generally believe that a photograph or video “quite clearly” speaks for itself; it obviously is the truth.[37]

The communication gaps caused by language and cultural diversity can be overcome with visual communication because our minds perceive and comprehend the image and its meaning nearly instantly, without apparent process or even self-awareness. The power of visual rhetorical devices in legal discourse requires a careful attention to the author’s ethical and professional responsibilities not to use the power to confuse, mislead, or overwhelm the reasoning power of the audience.[38] In legal education, the lesson remains that visual communication transcends the limits and gaps in verbal language when one’s primary goal is to communicate information so that it is received and understood. In other words, visual effects lead to better comprehension in the audience.

Visual effects successfully depict abstract concepts (such as emotions, states of being, or states of mind) with or without any accompanying text.[39]

Human beings’ superior ability to perceive, comprehend, and apply information received visually allows professors and attorneys who employ visual teaching techniques to make themselves understood by audiences of different languages and cultures without necessarily involving a higher-order, cognitive function, such as the translation of text or assembly of a number of “authorities” to support a point of communication.

III. Uses of Visual Rhetorical Devices in the Classroom

For many years, I taught courses predominantly to law students who were of white, non-Latino backgrounds. Now, at my current law school I teach a study body significantly made up of over 35% persons of color. At the same time, I began to teach international LL.M. students and international masters degree students at the law school and graduate school of Valparaiso University. My fifteen years of teaching up to that point in time seemed suddenly insufficient because I could no longer communicate effectively with a significant portion of my classes.

LL.M students often surprised me when they readily learned and applied complicated concepts of U.S. jurisprudence and procedure, which were quite different from the students’ civil law education and experience, but then applied other material from legal sources incorrectly. The misapplication derived from the lack of exposure students had to U.S. culture. This never had anything to do with LL.M students being less intelligent; it was a consequence of the reliance on culture and experience, which facilitates the interpretation and understanding of case law in the United States. This gap in the understanding of the culture and life experiences challenged international students in their efforts to understand the narratives, the metaphors, and the legal reasoning of the cases and problems set before them.

A. Legal Issues Involving Dog Bites and “Cut Grass”

The initial cases and writing problems in legal writing often involve fact patterns about tort injuries caused by dog bites. Dog bite liability is an area of law that is not overly complex, but still contains examples of the development of law in a common law system.[40] But frequently my international students did not understand the facts of the cases. They appeared not to know of U.S. customs and practices involving dogs, and asked questions such as, “Why did people have dogs at their houses? Why is anyone talking about people being responsible for dogs? Is it true that we are not talking about wild dogs, roaming loose?” Another problem early in the semester involved criminal mischief, which required the students to evaluate a homeowner’s conduct toward his neighbor: Was the act of a neighbor who voluntarily cut his neighbor’s grass an act of criminal mischief? The foreign students unanimously said, “Yes, of course he committed criminal mischief—he destroyed his neighbor’s grass.” It was lost on these students that such conduct may help or improve a neighbor’s property in a suburban environment accustomed to uniform, well-manicured lawns. Nothing in their background and experience prepared them to answer that problem.

These international LL.M. students already had a foreign law degree—there was no gap in their basic understanding of the rule of law, the concept of a court system, and the balance of legislative, judicial, and executive powers.[41] They also were able to translate all of the course materials into their first language because the materials were provided to them in electronic form. But their cultural and life experience slowed them down in understanding the symbols and metaphors of life in the United States and the narratives underlying the cases and problems.[42]

Visual rhetoric is not a silver bullet. But, when visuals were introduced, communication was able to occur. Images of humans interacting with dogs can bridge some of the gaps in the narrative and life experience—In the U.S., we love dogs. We hang out with dogs. We crawl all over dogs and they crawl all over us. They ride in cars with us. They sit around the house with us.

This effort could be supplemented with images of the situation gone wrong—dogs biting humans—to help bridge the gap in the narratives.

For the grass cutting problem, a few pictures of suburban life in the United States, and the meaning of “cutting the grass,” should help bring the audience up to speed. Together, the images reveal what can be perceived as a dysfunction in the proper scheme of things.

In a suburban context, cutting the grass, therefore, should be understood to be improving the neighbor’s lot, as well as the appearance and value of the houses nearby. It should not have been viewed as criminal mischief under the definition we were working with in the assignment.[43]

B. Illustration of a Class Lesson

In most classes, including those taught to primarily J.D. students in the United States, I use visuals to illustrate the law or the cases. Many of these images include text, but the point of illustration is that the verbal message is minimal in comparison to the communicative potential of the visual message.

Figure 1. Chart, which author created for educational use, depicting multiple images of Sandro Botticelli’s Birth of Venus as a demonstration of the originality concept in copyright law.

Figure 2. Chart, which author created for educational use, depicting the California court system.

Figure 3. Illustrated slide, which author created for educational use, depicting various clients with potential diminished capacity affecting legal representation.

Figure 4. Diagram, which author created for educational use, comparing two images of the Boston Massacre, each presenting a different narrative of the event.

Figure 5. Diagram, which author created for educational use, illustrating Hogarth and Rowlandson protest art in Georgian England.

C. Illustration of the Facts and Subject Matter of Cases

In comparison to the real-world drama of legal disputes, casebooks, office memoranda, and legal briefs are dreadfully antiquated. Generally, briefs today look like briefs from a hundred years ago: they are completely or overwhelmingly verbal.[44] If one controlled for the differences in handwritten and primitive, typewriter typeset briefs, compared to modern, word-processed briefs, and further controlled for the dates of authorities cited in the two briefs, a lawyer from almost fifty years ago would have a difficult time telling a 1967 brief from a 2015 brief.[45] Briefs today follow the same structure and content as briefs of a hundred years ago.[46] Judicial opinions, too, rarely provide their readers with visuals to illustrate the facts and subject-matter of the case.[47] Even when they do, in many instances, the illustrations offered are woefully inadequate at illustrating the point of law or point of comparison within the subject-matter of the case.[48] A law professor or attorney will not be overwhelmed with a panoply of examples of visual rhetoric in legal briefs and cases. Even if the person could find sources, Westlaw or Lexis would not be used because both services strip all images and tables from the cases and documents stored on their system. In short, the professor or lawyer is going to have to make her own examples and illustrations.

In most cases, the illustrations used in my teaching are not confined to the actual exhibits used in the cases. Instead, I research, compile, or create images beyond the confines of the cases to depict the legal problem more realistically.

Figure 6. Exhibit, which author created for educational use, illustrating a legal research and writing problem involving then-Gubernatorial Candidate Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Figure 7. Collage, which author created for educational use, illustrating the facts of copyright cases, Satava v. Lowry, 323 F.3d 805 (9th Cir. 2003), Mattel, Inc. v. Goldberger Dolls Mfg. Co., 365 F.3d 133 (2d Cir. 2004), Indianapolis Colts v. Metro. Balt. Football Club Ltd. P’ship, 34 F.3d 410 (7th Cir. 1994), and Mannion v. Coors Brewing Co., 377 F. Supp. 2d 444 (S.D.N.Y. 2005).

Figure 8. Diagram depicting the two works at issue in Blanch v. Koons, 467 F.3d 244 (2d Cir. 2006), which author created for educational use.

Figure 9. Map illustrating the location of the events of Ward v. Rock Against Racism, 491 U.S. 781 (1989), which author annotated for educational use.

The process of illustrating course material need not be limited to prepared slides or handouts created before a classroom session. A professor also can use the whiteboard or black board to make on-the-spot illustrations that may be “pictorial.”

Figure 10. Sample white board illustration, which author created for educational use.

Figure 11. Whiteboard rendition of M.C. Escher’s Relativity, which author used for educational purposes. Whiteboard Remakes of Famous Paintings, Senses Lost (Feb. 2, 2012), http://senseslost.com/2012/02/02
/whiteboard-remakes-of-famous-paintings/.

Conclusion

Visual devices will not cure all shortcomings in the comprehension of communications. For some visuals, the scene depicted will be as alien to the audience as a science fiction or fantasy depiction.

Figure 12. Movie still from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2, which author used for educational purposes. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 (Warner Bros. 2011).

Figure 13. Outer Space Stargate Atlantis Daedalus Battle image, which author used for educational purposes. Outer Space Stargate Atlantis Daedalus Battles 1920×1080 Wallpaper Aircraft Space HD, Wallpaper Hi, http://www.wallpaperhi.com/Aircraft/Space/outer_space_stargate_atlantis_daedalus_battles_1920x1080_wallpaper_84823#sthash.V6b4iWyA.dpufs-paintings/ (last updated Sept. 1, 2012).

Communication is possible when images are used to communicate a message that transcends language and cultural experience. Basic narratives of heroic action, self-sacrifice, injustice, or corruption can be depicted in images and used in the classroom and beyond.

These pictures replace the words that otherwise would be needed to explain the background, actions, or subject-matter of the cases at hand.

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† The 2014 Western Regional Conference at Stanford Law School opened a conversation on motivating students to do their best work, “beyond carrots and sticks.” This Article follows the Author’s presentation at the conference and addresses communication within the “new normal” in legal education and law practice in which our audiences of LL.M. and J.D. students, clients, and jurors increasingly are diverse and multicultural. Communication with these audiences can be facilitated by using visual rhetorical techniques to apply a more universal language of communication through images, graphics, and diagrams to bridge gaps in communication caused by cultural and language barriers.
* Associate Professor of Law, Valparaiso Law School. J.D., Columbia Law School (Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar); B.A., Loyola University-Maryland (summa cum laude); Grad. Cert., Fudan University-Shanghai, China. Professor Murray has written eighteen books and numerous law review articles on legal rhetoric, advocacy, art law, copyright, ethics of intellectual property, freedom of expression, and other topics. This Article was prepared for a presentation at the Western Regional Legal Writing Conference at Stanford Law School, Sept. 19, 2014. This Article also benefits from the comments of Sonya Bonneau (Georgetown), Lucy Jewel (Tennessee), Steve Johansen (Lewis & Clark), Katrina Lee (Ohio State), Carol Parker (Tennessee), Michael Smith (Wyoming), and Adam Todd (Dayton) at the 2014 Legal Writing Institute Biennial National Conference in Philadelphia; from the comments of Pamela Keller (Kansas), Allison Kort (UMKC), Kathleen Dillon Narko (Northwestern), Maureen Collins (John Marshall-Chicago), and Joyce Rosenberg (Kansas) at the 2013 Central States Legal Writing Conference at the University of Kansas; and from the comments of William Mock (John Marshall-Chicago), Daphne O’Regan (Michigan State), Robert Somers (Whittier), and Charles Thatcher (South Dakota) at the Seventh Global Legal Skills Conference (2012) in San Jose, Costa Rica.

         [1].     See Johanna K.P. Dennis, Ensuring a Multicultural Educational Experience in Legal Education: Start with the Legal Writing Classroom, 16 Tex. Wesleyan L. Rev. 613, 614–15, 631–36 (2010) (discussing the need to adjust communication for multicultural audiences); Kimiko Hahn, Jenny Rivera & Ruthann Robson, Translating Equality: Language, Law and Poetry, 13 N.Y. City L. Rev. 233, 244–47 (2010) (discussing English as a Second Language challenges in law school and law practice); Douglas Laycock, The Broader Case for Affirmative Action: Desegregation, Academic Excellence, and Future Leadership, 78 Tul. L. Rev. 1767, 1772–73 (2004) (recommending readjustment in legal education for diverse audiences); Kathryn M. Stanchi, Resistance Is Futile: How Legal Writing Pedagogy Contributes to the Law’s Marginalization of Outsider Voices, 103 Dick. L. Rev. 7, 16–28 (1998) (describing the effects of traditional legal education and legal communication in practice that coerces silence among minority and traditionally underrepresented groups).

         [2].     The study of rhetoric encompasses many things, but primarily effective communication. See Jerome Bruner & Anthony G. Amsterdam, Minding the Law chs. 3, 5 (2002) (discussing the use of categories and narratives as communication in the law). See also James Boyd White, Law as Rhetoric, Rhetoric as Law: The Arts of Cultural and Communal Life, 52 U. Chi. L. Rev. 684, 684 (1985) [hereinafter Law as Rhetoric, Rhetoric as Law] (stating that rhetoric establishes, maintains, and transforms the community and the culture); James Boyd White, A Symposium: The Theology of the Practice of Law February 14, 2002 Roundtable Discussion, 53 Mercer L. Rev. 1087, 1090 (2002) [hereinafter The Theology of the Practice of Law] (“So the minute we begin to think and talk about anything at all we live in the world of language, a world of contingent resources for thought and speech, and rhetoric is a perfectly good term for how we do that.”).

         [3].     The part of rhetoric that studies the language of a particular discipline (e.g., the law) and its coding, delivery, and reception of the language is particularly important to the discussion here. See Hans-Georg Gadamer, The Expressive Power of Language, 107 Publications Mod. Language Ass’n Am. 348, 348 (1992) (“For us the art of speaking has been transformed into the arts of writing and reading. Speech is always spoken to or before someone, and the same is true for the art of writing and thus for the art of reading. After all, writing is always written for someone, even if the addressee remains undetermined.”); Francis J. Mootz, III, Law in Flux: Philosophical Hermeneutics, Legal Argumentation, and the Natural Law Tradition, 11 Yale J.L. & Human. 311, 311 (1999); Law as Rhetoric, Rhetoric as Law, supra note 2, at 695 (“Like law, rhetoric invents, and like law, it invents out of something rather than out of nothing. It always starts in a particular culture and among particular people. There is always one speaker addressing others in a particular situation about concerns that are real and important to somebody, and speaking a particular language.”).

         [4].     Jules L. Coleman & Brian Leiter, Determinacy, Objectivity, and Authority, 142 U. Pa. L. Rev. 549, 571 (1993) (“Meaning is not radically indeterminate; instead, meaning is public—fixed by public behavior, beliefs, and understandings.”). See Kent Greenawalt, Law and Objectivity 72–73 (1992) (discussing how “social practice” can lend determinacy to rule-following); Christopher L. Kutz, Note, Just Disagreement: Indeterminacy and Rationality in the Rule of Law, 103 Yale L.J. 997, 1010 (1994) (noting that under Wittgenstein’s premises, the correct use of a word will show the user community’s “natural tendencies”); Brian Langille, Revolution Without Foundation: The Grammar of Scepticism and Law, 33 McGill L.J. 451, 493 (1988) (noting that a necessary prerequisite of language is the community’s “agreement in judgments”); John F. Manning, The Absurdity Doctrine, 116 Harv. L. Rev. 2387, 2396 n.29 (2003) (applying the need for a common language in statutory interpretation); John F. Manning, Textualism and the Equity of the Statute, 101 Colum. L. Rev. 1, 96 (2001) (noting that a linguistic community’s agreements about judgments are a necessary prerequisite for language). See also Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations 134–42 (G.E.M. Anscombe trans., 3d ed. 1953) (emphasizing the use of words in linguistic interactions within a relevant community).

         [5].     Bruner & Amsterdam, supra note 2, at chs. 4–5; Adeno Addis, Role Models and the Politics of Recognition, 144 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1377, 1435–38 (1996); Susan Bandes, Searching for Worlds Beyond the Canon: Narrative, Rhetoric, and Legal Change, 28 Law & Soc. Inquiry 271, 273–74, 278–80 (2003); Peter Margulies, Inclusive and Exclusive Virtues: Approaches to Identity, Merit, and Responsibility in Recent Legal Thought, 46 Cath. U. L. Rev. 1109, 1126–37 (1997); Francis J. Mootz III, Rhetorical Knowledge in Legal Practice and Theory, 6 S. Cal. Interdisc. L.J. 491, 557 (1998); Robert L. Scott, On Viewing Rhetoric as Epistemic: Ten Years Later, 27 Cent. States Speech J. 258, 261 (1977); Richard K. Sherwin, A Matter of Voice and Plot: Belief and Suspicion in Legal Storytelling, 87 Mich. L. Rev. 543, 579, 596–98, 601 (1988).

         [6].     See George Lakoff & Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By 3 (U. Chi. Press 2003) (“We have found, on the contrary, that metaphor is pervasive in everyday life, not just in language but in thought and action. Our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature.”); George Lakoff, Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal About the Mind xiv (1987) (“[Metaphor] is this imaginative capacity that allows for ‘abstract’ thought and takes the mind beyond what we can see and feel. The imaginative capacity is also embodied—indirectly—since the metaphors, metonymies, and images are based on experience, often bodily experience.”); Eve E. Sweetser, From Etymology to Pragmatics: Metaphorical and Cultural Aspects of Semantic Structure 8 (1990) (“It has been argued that a great deal of polysemy is due to metaphorical usage, and that in fact not only our language, but our cognition and hence our language, operates metaphorically.”); Charles R. Dyer, The Queen of Chula Vista: Stories of Self-Represented Litigants and A Call for Using Cognitive Linguistics to Work with Them, 99 Law Libr. J. 717, 745–48 (2007); Jonathan K. Van Patten, Metaphors and Persuasion, 58 S.D. L. Rev. 295, 299 (2013) (“The meaning of the metaphor should be grounded in what the audience knows.”); Steven Winter, Transcendental Nonsense, Metaphoric Reasoning, and the Cognitive Stakes for Law, 137 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1237, 1237 (1989).

         [7].     See Ruth Anne Robbins, Harry Potter, Ruby Slippers and Merlin: Telling the Client’s Story Using the Characters and Paradigm of the Archetypal Hero’s Journey, 29 Seattle U. L. Rev. 767, 773 (2006); Steven L. Winter, The Cognitive Dimension of the Agony Between Legal Power and Narrative Meaning, 87 Mich. L. Rev. 2225, 2228 (1989). See also James Hillman, Archetypal Psychology: A Brief Account 1 (Spring Pub. 1985) (“By traditional definition, archetypes are the primary forms that govern the psyche. But they cannot be contains only be the psyche, since they manifest as well in physical, social, linguistic, aesthetic, and spiritual modes.”); Carl G. Jung, The Portable Jung 59–60 (Joseph Campbell ed., R.F.C. Hull trans., Penguin Books 1976) (“Whereas the personal unconscious consists for the most part of complexes, the content of the collective unconscious is made up essentially of archetypes.”).

         [8].     See generally Dennis, supra note 1, at 631–32 (“The solution is not to simply educate more minority students—it is about hypereducating them. . . . This concept of hypereducation means to go beyond the traditional confines of legal education. It means to transform the experience into something more than that which is expected. . . . [T]eachers should consider the needs of students from multicultural backgrounds, develop instructional topics, and provide support and assistance to these students.”). See Stanchi, supra note 1, at 45–51 (discussing the bias of legal vocabulary against “outsider” law students).

[9].     See            Richard K. Sherwin et al., Law in the Digital Age: How Visual Communication Technologies Are Transforming the Practice, Theory, and Teaching of Law, 12 B.U. J. Sci. & Tech. L. 227, 230–34 (2006) (discussing how visuals are becoming more useful for communication in the legal profession).

[10].      See generally Peter Hinssen, The New Normal: Explore the Limits of the Digital World (Lannoo 2011) (predicting the highly-visual digital world as being “our new normal”). See Nicholas A. Kosar, The New Normal in Professional Services Marketing, MarketingProfs (Nov. 7, 2013), http://www.marketingprofs.com/articles/2013/12017/the-new-normal-in-professional-services-marketing#ixzz3IykkfRtj (referencing statistics on visual and multimedia consumption by professionals); Patricia Redsicker, 6 Marketing Trends to Watch in 2013: New Research, SocialMedia Examiner (July 23, 2013), http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/marketing-trends-2013/ (“Keep in mind that capturing your customers’ attention will become harder as media multitasking becomes the new normal. Your digital content will need to be smarter, more creative and more visual to connect and engage today’s audiences.”).

       [11].     Cf. Michael D. Murray, Visual Rhetoric: Topics of Invention and Arrangement and Tropes of Style, 21 Legal Writing (forthcoming, 2016), available at http://ssrn.com/abstract=2491911, at 2 (“This Article evaluates visual legal rhetoric in order to demonstrate the potential of visual-graphical devices and narrative elements for use in legal discourse.”).

[12].     Narrativity is a growing, developing concept in contemporary legal rhetoric. See Derek H. Kiernan-Johnson, A Shift to Narrativity, 9 Legal Comm. & Rhetoric: JALWD 81, 84–91 (2012) (summarizing relevant scholarship leading to the concept of narrativity); Stephen Paskey, The Law is Made of Stories: Erasing the False Dichotomy Between Stories and Legal Rules, 11 Legal Comm. & Rhetoric: JALWD 51, 62 n.80 (2014) (discussing an expansive definition of narrativity). Some definitions of narrativity are very broad and not distinctively legal; e.g., “the set of properties characterizing narratives and distinguishing them from non-narratives.” David Herman et al., Routledge Encyclopedia of Narrative Theory 387 (2005). The term is not yet a synonym for “applied legal storytelling.” See Ruth Anne Robbins, An Introduction to Applied Storytelling and to This Symposium, 14 J. Legal Writing Inst. 3, 3–4 (2008) (advocating the use of storytelling as a means to practice law). However, narrativity is developing into the single term with the closest connection to the subject matter and content of applied legal storytelling. See Kiernan-Johnson, supra, at 84 (“The meaning of [applied legal storytelling’s] current flagship term, storytelling, depends on the meaning of its root word, story. And the meaning of that word is bound up with the meaning of another word, narrative.”).

[13].     Elizabeth G. Porter, Taking Images Seriously, 114 Colum. L. Rev. 1687, 1722 (2014) (“Legal search tools are also pioneering efforts to enhance the role of visuality in law. . . . HeinOnline allows instant access to PDF versions of document that retain their footnotes, images, graphics, an all other visual details. . . . Other legal research-tool start-ups, including Ravel and the JustCite PrecedentMap, similarly promise to expand the ways in which lawyers access, understand and explain the law.”). See also Murray, supra note 11, at 2–3 (“The recognition that visual rhetoric is rapid, efficient, constructive, and persuasive reveals the potential of visual rhetorical devices to serve as topics and tropes in legal discourse to construct meaning and to inform and persuade legal audiences.”). See Michael D. Murray, Visual Rhetoric and Visual Narrativity in Five Sections of a Brief 4 (Sept. 16, 2014), available at http://ssrn.com/abstract=2460357.

       [14].     See Porter, supra note 13; See Sherwin et al., supra note 9, at 234–35 (citing Stephen M. Kosslyn, Elements of Graph Design 10 (1994)) (“The ongoing transformation of law practice by digital visual and multimedia technologies can be gauged in part by the growing numbers of high-tech courtrooms, legal visual consultants, and instructional materials for lawyers.”). See Lucille A. Jewel, Through a Glass Darkly: Using Brain Science and Visual Rhetoric to Gain A Professional Perspective on Visual Advocacy, 19 S. Cal. Interdisc. L.J. 237, 238 (2010) (“[A]ttorneys should stay current with our evolving media culture by incorporating visual technologies into their advocacy toolboxes.”); Rosalind Pollack Petchesky, Fetal Images: The Power of Visual Culture in the Politics of Reproduction, 13 Feminist Stud. 263, 265 (1987) (discussing the use of visual imagery in the abortion context and the imagery’s ability to communicate instantaneously); Nadia N. Sawicki, Compelling Images: The Constitutionality of Emotionally Persuasive Health Campaigns, 73 Md. L. Rev. 458, 522 (2014) (“Incorporating [emotional imagery] into the constitutional analysis, however, is an important step for bringing contemporary constitutional jurisprudence in line with ethical arguments and empirical evidence about the psychology of human decision making.”).

       [15].     Compare Dennis, supra note 1, at 642–43 (reporting an increase in underrepresented minorities’ admission to law school numbers reported), with Karen R. Britton, The Landscape Around the Diversity Pipeline, 45 Tenn. B.J. 14, 14–15 (Feb. 2009), and John Nussbaumer & Christopher Johnson, The Door To Law School, 6 U. Mass. Roundtable Symp. L.J. 1, 3–7 (2011). See N. William Hines, Ten Major Changes in Legal Education Over the Past 25 Years, AALS Newsletter (Nov. 2005), http://www.aals.org/services_newsletter_presNov05.php (discussing the attitude of law schools towards diversity and global outreach); Why Harvard?, Harvard Law School, http://www.law.harvard.edu/prospective/jd/why/index.html (last visited Feb. 3, 2015); Why Alabama Law?, University of Alabama School of Law, http://www.law.ua.edu/admissions
/why-alabama/ (last visited Feb. 3, 2015).

       [16].     But the adage still is worthy of a Harvard Law Review article title. See generally Rebecca Tushnet, Worth a Thousand Words: The Images of Copyright, 125 Harv. L. Rev. 683 (2012) (discussing the treatment of visuals in many legal contexts, specifically the intellectual property context).

       [17].     See id. at 759 (“It will be difficult for the law to treat images with more sophistication than the culture at large does. We can expect continued unease with art that produces nonrational responses or that crosses the boundaries between high and mass culture. Still, conscious attention to the features of nontextual media has to be the starting point for a coherent legal doctrine.”); Porter, supra note 13, at 1694–98 (discussing the benefits and, sometimes dangers, of using visual communication in the legal fields).

       [18].     Law and popular culture also has studied the movement of visual elements of popular culture into litigation and trial practice. E.g., Evelyn Marcus, The New Razzle Dazzle: Questioning the Propriety of High-Tech Audiovisual Displays in Closing Argument, 30 Vt. L. Rev. 361, 391 (2006); Rosalind Pollack Petchesky, Fetal Images: The Power of Visual Culture in the Politics of Reproduction, 13 Feminist Stud. 263, 265 (1987) (supporting generally the impact of popular culture in legal arguments). See Porter, supra note 13, at 1723–48 (describing the use of images as evidence in litigation, part of judicial opinions and as metaphoric icons); Richard K. Sherwin, Visual Jurisprudence, 57 N.Y.L. Sch. L. Rev. 11, 16–18 (2013) [hereinafter Visual Jurisprudence]; Richard K. Sherwin, A Manifesto for Visual Legal Realism, 40 Loy. L.A. L. Rev. 719, 725–26 (2007) [hereinafter A Manifesto for Visual Legal Realism]; Sherwin et al., supra note 9, at 243 (citing Stephen M. Kosslyn, Elements of Graph Design 10 (1994)).

       [19].     See Maria Perez Crist, The E-Brief: Legal Writing for an Online World, 33 N.M. L. Rev. 49, 50–51 (2003); Porter, supra note 13, at 1740–43; Philip A. Talmadge, New Technologies and Appellate Practice, 2 J. App. Prac. & Process 363, 369 (2000) (referencing court documents used on electronic mediums).

       [20].     “Nomos” is defined as the narrative of law existing in popular culture. See Robert M. Cover, The Folktales of Justice: Tales of Jurisdiction, 14 Cap. U. L. Rev. 179, 181–82 (1985); Bernard J. Hibbits, Making Sense of Metaphors: Visuality, Aurality, and the Reconfiguration of American Legal Discourse, 16 Cardozo L. Rev. 229, 335–36 (1994); Samuel J. Levine, Halacha and Aggada: Translating Robert Cover’s Nomos and Narrative, 1998 Utah L. Rev. 465, 469 (1998); Kimberlianne Podlas, The Tales Television Tells: Understanding the Nomos Through Television, 13 Tex. Wesleyan L. Rev. 31, 62 (2006); Richard K. Sherwin, Nomos and Cinema, 48 UCLA. L. Rev. 1519, 1539 (2001); Robert M. Cover, Nomos and Narrative, 97 Harv. L. Rev. 4, 4 (1983) (“We inhabit a nomos—a normative universe. We constantly create and maintain a world of right and wrong, of lawful and unlawful, of valid and void.”).

       [21].     E.g., Christopher J. Buccafusco, Gaining/Losing Perspective on the Law, or Keeping Visual Evidence in Perspective, 58 U. Miami L. Rev. 609, 621 (2004).

       [22].     See Jewel, supra note 14, at 264–68; Sherwin et al., supra note 9, at 268–70. See generally David McCandless, The Visual Miscellaneum (rev. ed. 2012) (discussing how to put various kinds of data into creative visuals to enhance the receiver’s perspective). See David McCandless, The Beauty of Data Visualization, TED (July 2010),

       [23].     See Jewel, supra note 14, at 264–68; Sherwin et al., supra note 9, at 268–70. See generally David McCandless, The Visual Miscellaneum (rev. ed. 2012) (discussing how to put various kinds of data into creative visuals to enhance the receiver’s perspective). See David McCandless, The Beauty of Data Visualization, TED (July 2010), http://www.ted.com/talks
/david_mccandless_the_beauty_of_data_visualization#t-323333; Preston Oade & Leslie C. Annand, Winning with Visual Evidence, 1 25 Colo. Law. 1, 35, 38 (1996); Edward Tufte, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information 13 (2d ed. 2001).

       [24].     This trend was noted in the early twenty-first century, and continues today. See Crist, supra note 19, at 50–51; Talmadge, supra note 19, at 369; Michael Whiteman, Appellate Court Briefs on the Web: Electronic Dynamos or Legal Quagmire?, 97 Law Libr. J. 467, 484 (2005) (noting the popularity of the Internet at the start of the twenty-first century has lead to the increased use of technology in the courts).

       [25].     See Bruner & Amsterdam, supra note 2; Hillman, supra note 7; Jung, supra note 7. See generally Martha Nussbaum, Poetic Justice (1995) (exploring literary imagination as an important ingredient in public discourse and a democratic society); Teresa Godwin Phelps, Shattered Voices: Language, Violence And The Work Of Truth Commissions ch. 4 (2004) (exploring potential benefits of storytelling in the context of transitional democracies). See Ty Alper et al., Stories Told and Untold: Lawyering Theory Analyses of the First Rodney King Assault Trial, 12 Clinical L. Rev. 1, 4 (2005); Philip N. Meyer, “Desperate for Love”: Cinematic Influences Upon a Defendant’s Closing Argument to a Jury, 18 Vt. L. Rev. 721 (1994); Philip N. Meyer, Making The Narrative Move: Observations Based Upon Reading Gerry Spence’s Closing Argument in The Estate Of Karen Silkwood v. Kerr-Mcgee, Inc., 9 Clinical L. Rev. 229, 229 (2002); Robbins, supra note 7, at 773; Richard K. Sherwin, Law Frames: Historical Truth and Narrative Necessity in a Criminal Case, 47 Stan. L. Rev. 39, 41 (1994); Winter, supra note 7, at 2228.

       [26].     See Jewel, supra note 14, at 264; Sherwin et al., supra note 9, at 239.

       [27].     Sherwin et al., supra note 9, at 236–39. See Visual Jurisprudence, supra note 18, at 236–39; Crist, supra note 19, at 50 (“As courts find themselves inundated with the problems associated with a print-based system, the motivation to move to electronic media is compelling.”).

       [28].     See Murray, supra note 11, at 7 (defining visual rhetoric using the classic definition of rhetoric).

[29].     See Kiernan-Johnson, supra note 12, at 82 (“Although it remains important for AppLS scholars to continue to think carefully about the objects of inquiry—story and narrative—as well as about methods of creating or conveying them—storytelling and narrating, to name just two—it is more important to think, rhetorically and pragmatically, of what quality these objects or processes add to a legal text or performance.”).

       [30].     See Robbins, supra note 12, at 7 (explaining that a goal of applied legal storytelling is to serve the client’s purpose through a cohesive story).

       [31].     See generally Stephen M. Kosslyn et al., Visual Images Preserve Metric Spatial Information: Evidence from Studies of Image Scanning, 4 J. Experimental Psychol.: Hum. Perception & Performance 47, 59 (1978) (explaining that perception of images mentally is as fast as perception of actual visual objects in the world); Carrie Leonetti & Jeremy Bailenson, High-Tech View: The Use of Immersive Virtual Environments in Jury Trials, 93 Marq. L. Rev. 1073, 1074, n.18 (2010); Elizabeth F. Loftus & James M. Doyle, Eyewitness Testimony: Civil And Criminal (3d ed. 1997) (discussing visual evidence, eyewitness testimony, and perception); Elizabeth Loftus & Katherine Ketcham, Witness for the Defense 14–30 (1991) (describing the shortcomings of eyewitness testimony using the “Magic of the Mind” principle); Eyewitness Testimony: Psychological Perspectives (Gary L. Wells & Elizabeth Loftus eds., 1984) (discussing many topics on eyewitness testimony, including word choice and the use of images affect juror perception).

[32].      See Jewel, supra note 14, at 281–89; Sherwin et al., supra note 9, at 249, 255;                Tushnet, supra note 16, at 692.

       [33].     See Tushnet, supra note 16, at 692.

       [34].     Id. (quoting Allan Sekula, On the Invention of Photographic Meaning, in Photography Against the Grain 37 (1984)).

[35].      Butterfly Chack Sheet, Butterflyonline.com, http://www.butterflyonline.com
/inventoryD.asp?item_no=8071&CatId=%7B5C280051-7172-44FA-A8E5-1130A1C1E5E5%7D (last visited Jan. 13, 2015) (noting that even this text-dominated example has two small pictures); Aeron Side Chair Parts Assembly Diagram, http://oodlesofusedparts.com/images
/aeron_side_chair_diagram.jpg (last visited Jan. 13, 2015); Sear’s Roadmaster Bicycle Parts Assembly Diagram, http://c.searspartsdirect.com/lis_png/PLDM/10036433-00001.png (last visited Jan. 13, 2015).

       [36].     See A Manifesto for Visual Legal Realism, supra note 18, at 725–26 (2007) (“Viewers tend to react to screen images in the same way that they react to reality. Naïve realism apparently is the natural default setting for visual common sense. Subject to our unthinking gaze, which is mostly how we watch, the screen seems to present a window onto reality. We tend to look through the medium rather than at it. Moreover, once we comprehend what we see, that’s usually all we need to believe it. In other words, the familiar commonplace that ‘seeing is believing’ is not just idle folk knowledge—not that there is anything ‘idle’ about folk knowledge. Indeed, such knowledge is a major source not only of mental content but also of the cognitive tools most people use most of the time.”). See also Adam Benforado & Jon Hanson, Naïve Cynicism: Maintaining False Perceptions in Policy Debates, 57 Emory L.J. 499, 531–32 (2008) (“Inasmuch as such third party reports information that is consistent with our existing beliefs, we see that third party as, like us, fair and balanced.”); Bryan D. Lammon, What We Talk About When We Talk About Ideology: Judicial Politics Scholarship and Naive Legal Realism, 83 St. John’s L. Rev. 231, 233 (2009) (“Similarly, behavioral realists have called for legal analysis grounded in the findings of social science and have given special attention to the ways in which implicit bias might affect how we approach antidiscrimination policy.”); Lee Ross & Donna Shestowsky, Contemporary Psychology’s Challenges to Legal Theory and Practice, 97 Nw. U. L. Rev. 1081, 1081 (2003) (“Why has the law and economics tradition been so influential, and mainstream social and cognitive psychology relatively ignored, in modem legal scholarship? One reason surely is that our legal institutions rest on the same rationalist assumptions about human inference and decisionmaking that underlie classic economics. In recent years, however, these shared rationalist foundations have been shaken by the work of psychologists and behavioral economists who have identified systematic biases that compromise the ability of ordinary men and women to make rational judgments, predictions, and resource allocations.”).

       [37].     See Scott v. Harris, 550 U.S. 372, 378 (2007) (reversing the Court of Appeals’ decision denying summary judgment because the videotape of the car chase filmed from the pursuing police car “quite clearly” contradicted the version of the facts put forth by the respondent, Harris). Justice Scalia, writing for the majority, stated that the Court of Appeals “should have viewed the facts in the light depicted by the videotape.” Id. at 381.

       [38].     See Michael D. Murray, After the Great Recession: Law and Economics’ Topics of Invention and Arrangement & Tropes of Style, 58 Loy. L. Rev. 897, 936–37 (2012) (discussing the ethical and professional use of mathematical and scientific diagrams and forms as rhetorical tropes and topics in legal discourse); Michael D. Murray, The Great Recession and the Rhetorical Canons of Law and Economics, 58 Loy. L. Rev. 615, 637–38 (2012) (discussing ethical and professional use of visual rhetorical devices common to law and economics).

       [39].      The effectiveness of visuals for communication of abstract concepts is an early, and long-standing observation of cognitive science. See generally Arthur A. Berger, Seeing is Believing: An Introduction to Visual Communication (1989) (discussing visual communication through various theories, such as semiotic theory and psychoanalytic theory); Bo Bergström, Essentials of Visual Communication (2009) (explaining how to achieve a strong communication chain and how to design messages for a target audience); Michael Emmison & Philip Smith, Researching the Visual: Images, Objects, Contexts and Interactions in Social and Cultural Inquiry (2000) (providing a comprehensive introduction to the field of visual research); Harry Jamieson, Visual Communication: More Than Meets the Eye (2007) (using language theory to explore the connection between perception and linguistics); Paul Martin Lester, Visual Communication: Images with Messages (4th ed. 2005) (providing substantial coverage of issue specific to visual communication); David Novitz, Pictures and Their Use in Communication: A Philosophical Essay (1977) (providing a philosophical look at visual image and its use in communication).

       [40].      For example, the Illinois line of dog bite cases leading up to Nelson v. Lewis, 344 N.E.2d 268 (Ill. App. Ct. 1976), has been featured in several first year legal writing texts. See Diane V. Pratt, Legal Writing: A Systematic Approach (4th ed. 2005); see Michael D. Murray & Christy H. DeSanctis, Legal Writing and Analysis (2d ed. 2009).

       [41].     Naturally, a lot of effort in these courses is devoted to teaching the differences between their civil law-dominated legal systems and the common law-influenced, state and federal, U.S. legal system in the United States.

       [42].     I continue to use the international students as a particularly apt example of any audience, but the lessons should not be confined to international students. American students bring a whole range of language and life-experience diversity and multicultural complexity that can be ameliorated with greater attention to visual communication.

       [43].     See Fla. Stat. § 806.13(1)(a) (2002) (“A person commits the offense of criminal mischief if he or she willfully and maliciously injures or damages by any means any real or personal property belonging to another . . . .”).

       [44].     See Porter, supra note 13, at 1692 (“Images feature in bare-bones complaints and in Supreme Court briefs, in civil cases and in criminal.”).

       [45].     See id. at 1699 (“Legal briefs from 1967 or 1997 look practically identical to typical briefs filed today.”).

       [46].     See id. (“[A]lthough trial practice is at the forefront of digital communication, conventional norms of written legal expression have remained static for decades; indeed, many of their roots date back centuries.”).

       [47].     See Richard A. Posner, Judicial Opinions and Appellate Advocacy in Federal Courts – One Judge’s Views, 51 Duq. L. Rev. 3, 8 (2013) (“[N]o pictures!”).

       [48].     See Porter, supra note 13, at 1699.