{"id":5425,"date":"2023-04-03T12:15:26","date_gmt":"2023-04-03T12:15:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/writehouseng.com\/w\/?p=5425"},"modified":"2024-05-06T13:00:55","modified_gmt":"2024-05-06T13:00:55","slug":"winning-through-language-a-guide-to-effective-themes-for-your-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/writehouseng.com\/w\/winning-through-language-a-guide-to-effective-themes-for-your-case\/","title":{"rendered":"Winning Through Language: A Guide to Effective Themes for Your Case"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Gerry Spence advises advocates to review their briefs several times. Then, says Spence, \u201cwrite a descriptive phrase or metaphor that symbolizes the soul of the case\u2014a refrain, perhaps\u2014and \u2026 call it the theme.\u201d Gerry Spence, <em>How to Argue and Win Every Time: At Home, At Work, In Court, Everywhere, Everyday <\/em>(St Martin\u2019s Griffin, 1995), 125.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You should \u201cselect a phrase, a theme, a slogan that represents the principal point of [your] argument. The theme can summarize a story that stands for the ultimate point we want to make: a saying, as it were, that symbolizes the heart of the issue.\u201d (Spence, 127).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Remember Johnny Cochran\u2019s brilliant defense in <em>People v Simpson<\/em>? Cochran\u2019s soundbite was, \u201cIf the glove doesn\u2019t fit, you must acquit!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The prosecution had presented the glove in evidence as having been worn by the defendant O. J. Simpson when he allegedly murdered his wife, Nicole Brown-Simpson. Defense counsel Johnny Cochran asked Simpson to try the glove on for size in open court. Well, the glove didn\u2019t fit, and Simpson was acquitted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In <em>Simpson<\/em>, a criminal case, all that the defense needed to do to earn an acquittal was to cast reasonable doubt on the prosecution\u2019s case. This they did by showing that the glove was the wrong size for their client, whereupon they kept repeating that theme as a slogan throughout the case. It proved an apt, effective, and ultimately successful theme for the defense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Chinua Asuzu, <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Brief-Writing-Masterclass-Chinua-Asuzu-ebook\/dp\/B0792923MM\/ref=sr_1_1?crid=NOT9DKV242OZ&amp;keywords=briefwriting+masterclass&amp;qid=1680518409&amp;sprefix=briefwriting+masterclas%2Caps%2C392&amp;sr=8-1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Brief-Writing Masterclass <\/a><\/em>(Partridge, 2017), 426\u2013427.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Gerry Spence advises advocates to review their briefs several times. Then, says Spence, \u201cwrite a descriptive phrase or metaphor that symbolizes the soul of the case\u2014a refrain, perhaps\u2014and \u2026 call it the theme.\u201d Gerry Spence, How to Argue and Win Every Time: At Home, At Work, In Court, Everywhere, Everyday (St Martin\u2019s Griffin, 1995), 125. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5426,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[112],"tags":[136,108,130],"class_list":["post-5425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-advocacy-skills","tag-brief-writing","tag-legal-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/writehouseng.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/writehouseng.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/writehouseng.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writehouseng.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writehouseng.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5425"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/writehouseng.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5425\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5428,"href":"https:\/\/writehouseng.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5425\/revisions\/5428"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writehouseng.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/writehouseng.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writehouseng.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writehouseng.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}