Chapter 9 – A Theme for your Client’s Story

It is important to incorporate a theme in your client’s story. A brief will stand out from others with equally good legal arguments if you incorporate a theme that demonstrates your client suffered an injustice. The theme should be implied in your client’s story as told in the statement of facts, and when possible, reflected in your choice of rule illustrations, analogies, and policy arguments. However, attorneys often struggle with incorporating a theme because they get caught up in intricacies of their legal arguments. One way to find your theme is through the  “shadow story.”  ^[1] ​

Your shadow story does not appear in your brief. It is a tool to help you find your theme and draft your statement of facts. It ​tells your client’s view of the facts on paper without a filter, so it is complete with explicit emotional reasons, opinions, and judgments. A shadow story is what you would like to say, and what your client wishes you could say, but what you cannot say because it would undermine your credibility. Imagine you tell the story of what happened to a close friend. Use adjectives and adverbs freely. Think about if you were unfiltered how you would make the reader care about your client, how you would describe your client, and how you describe the other party.

For example, describing a landlord who knew the furnace in a rental did not function properly but did nothing to fix it, you might want to tell the reader that “the property owner is an SOB.” However, you would later revise that sentence for a statement of facts to show rather than tell the reader the landlord was an SOB. So that phrase is deleted and replaced with facts that show the property owner was an SOB. For example, “the defendant property owner never returned the plaintiff tenant’s calls. Even in the dead of winter when the furnace stopped working, the temperature inside the rental hovered at 42 degrees.”  ​​​

Use the “tell” words in the shadow story to find your theme. Recognize the reason(s) readers would care about what happens to your client that your shadow story gives them.

Let’s look at an example. Take the case of a child who was lead poisoned by exposure to deteriorating lead-based paint in the apartment her family rented. Here is an excerpt from her shadow story (reference to R. are citations to the record):

Defendant Lloyd Simon is Mariner City’s worst slumlord. His cruel disregard for his tenants is unmatched. Moreover, he is among the city’s most wealthy landlords. He owns approximately 525 dilapidated units in the city; all are infested with rodents and insects. His neglect is criminal. R.28 Among his absolute most uninhabitable properties is 67 Pine Street. R. 56-58. It’s there that Simon poisoned the plaintiff when she was an innocent child of only three years of age.

The theme that arises in the shadow story is a search for justice for an innocent child victimized by a greedy property owner. Now, here is an excerpt from the child‘s statement of facts, which filters out the bias and emotion present in the shadow story:

Now that you finished this chapter you should understand the nature and purpose of a shadow story, and be able to write a shadow story to find a theme for your brief. In the next chapter you will read about how to transform a shadow story into a persuasive statement of facts.