Writing Matters

• Publication year: 2023
• Pages: 62

Writing Matters Vol. 28 No. 6 Pg. 62 Georgia Bar Journal June, 2023

A New Phenomenon in Legal Writing: Storytelling Complaint Introductions-Part II

In the last decade, some lawyers have begun to use storytelling techniques in an unexpected place: complaints, and specifically, complaint introductions.

BY MEGAN E. BOYD

Storytelling is an essential part of good lawyering, but until recently, few lawyers have employed storytelling techniques in the place they might be most useful-the complaint. In Part I of this two-part series, I discussed the use of persuasive introductions in complaints and gave some examples of the ways that Georgia lawyers have used introductions to give the reader an overview of the case and start to persuade the reader about the soundness of the plaintiff's position. Because few cases ever get before a factfinder, "the complaint may be the plaintiff's only opportunity to tell her story;"^[1]thus, the use of storytelling techniques in a complaint introduction may be crucial to getting the plaintiff's story into the public eye.

Even lawyers who frequently use storytelling techniques in other filings may be hesitant to include complaint introductions because of concerns that introductions might run afoul of the requirement that a complaint provide a short and plain statement of the claim. Besides requiring that complaints contain certain information, such as the basis subject matter jurisdiction and the relief sought, Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8 and its Georgia correlative, O.C.G.A. § 9-11-8, require that a complaint provide a "short and plain statement" of the claim "showing that the pleader is entitled to relief."

These rules were intended to simplify the pleading process. Generally, though, lawyers have interpreted the "short and plain" language to, if not mandate, at least strongly encourage that each paragraph include only one "plain and concise"^[2] sentence with a single factual or legal allegation. Conventional wisdom has also suggested that lawyers employ only sterilized terms in complaint drafting; that is, the use of emotional language and imagery, adjectives and adverbs in complaints has been discouraged under the theory that including this type of language will cause a defendant to deny the allegations, even if the substance is effectively unobjectionable. This traditional practice has led many if not most lawyers to draft what have been called "minimalist" complaints,^[3]which use anodyne...