Editor's Note

• Publication year: 2023

Editor's Note

Jordan Stone

Editor's Note

Jordan Stone

When I sat down to write this editor's note and book dedication, the first inspiration I reached for was a tattered old notebook from my 11th grade AP Language & Composition class. (Yes, sixteen years later I still have the notebook—chock full of notes, readings, and plenty of cringe-worthy writings authored by my 17-year-old self.) The class was and remains one of my all-time favorites. It was taught by Ms. Dana Davenport and it was under her kind and reasoned tutelage that I first understood the nature and power of narrative.

Ms. Davenport taught us about "rhetoric" before politicians and talking heads bandied the word about as cable news filler. We talked about the power of presentation and the power of language. We read what would become some of my favorite books: Slaughterhouse Five, All Quiet on the Western Front, and Into the Wild. Ms. Davenport would routinely pass around poems (always printed in minuscule font on 1/4^th sheets of paper-apparently she was an environmentalist before it was popular) by the likes of Billy Collins. We studied photographs by Margaret Bourke-White and we read essays by Roger Rosenblatt. The class was a broad survey of the various methods and words and images that we use to tell stories. It was then that I first remember approaching stories in a critical way and asking why the author or presenter chose to tell the story in a certain way.

That skill and knowledge has been useful throughout my time in law school. Narrative, language, and rhetoric are some of the most powerful tools that we as lawyers and future lawyers use to seek justice and uphold our legal values. Because of the knowledge and foundation that she provided to me long before I entered law school, I would like to dedicate...