Rhetoric and Advocacy

This is an excerpt of Chapter 2 of Murray and DeSanctis’s, Advanced Legal Writing and Oral Advocacy: Trials, Appeals, and Moot Court (Foundation Press, forthcoming, December 2013). The goal of the chapter is to teach law students to: frame arguments to the best advantage of the client; deliver a persuasive, logical argument by way of its structure, its style of discourse, and its contents; target the values and preferences of the audience through a careful consideration of the emotional impact of the discourse; project competence, mastery of the material, and trustworthiness through the contents of the discourse; and discover the best possible modes of persuasion to address the issues and requirements of the situation at hand.