Storytelling for Lawyers. By Philip N. Meyer. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014. 240 pp. $19.95 paper.

• Published date: 01 March 2015
• Date: 01 March 2015
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/lasr.12130

recent study of a Philadelphia neighborhood provides a useful meth-

odological counterpoint, which is more suggestive of the phenome-

nology and cultural effects of parental incarceration.

Second, Wakefield and Wildeman have little to say about the pol-

icy considerations of their analysis. They touch briefly on early child-

hood intervention policies, drug treatment programs, and reforms to

the probation system, but only in passing. It is surely to be hoped that

their pathmarking empirical work catalyzes among social scientists

wider engagement with and attention to previously unappreciated

spillover effects from mass incarceration, effects that promise to cast a

long shadow. It is also to be hoped that legal scholars and judges too

recognize that the collateral costs of laws on children is not an artifact

of the same-sex marriage context, but rather a pervasive and deeply

troubling aspect of our wider criminal regulatory state.

References

Goffman, Alice (2014) On the Run: Fugitive Life in an American City.Chicago: University of

Chicago Press.

Western, Bruce (2006) Punishment and Inequality in America. New York: Russell Sage

Foundation.

United States v. Windsor, 570 U.S. 133 S. Ct. 2675 (2013).

***

Storytelling for Lawyers. By Philip N. Meyer. New York: Oxford

University Press, 2014. 240 pp. $19.95 paper.

Reviewed by Mikaila Mariel Lemonik Arthur, Department of

Sociology, Rhode Island College

Let me preface this review by summarizing where I am coming

from as a reviewer: I am not a lawyer, nor am I a law school faculty

member. Rather, I am a social scientist studying legal education, a

teacher of undergraduates who aspire to legal careers, and a former

student of creative writing. These perspectives shape my views of

Meyer’s unique text, which is dedicated to the argument that story-

telling is at the root of effective litigation practice. Tomake this argu-

ment, he draws on the field of narratology and a wide variety of

legal and nonlegal stories to highlight five essential elements of

story-craft (p. 4): scene, cast, and character, plot, time frame, and

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