Storytelling for Lawyers. By Philip N. Meyer. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014. 240 pp. $19.95 paper.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 storytelling is at the root of effective litigation practice. To make this argument, he draws on the held 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 human plight, though the last of these-perhaps because it is so central to the practice of law-gets the least treatment. While his discussion of narrative theory would be familiar to anyone with creative writing training, he presents this material in a clear introductory fashion that makes it accessible to those outside the held.To get a sense of what Meyer is doing in this text, let us consider his discussion of characters. He advocates for the use of stock him characters as models for the characters in legal storytelling, as characters in both genres of story are reductionist, time-limited, plot-driven, and constrained in the ability to explore consciousness. These characters, then, become especially important for legal stories because of our societal tendencies toward fundamental attribution error, the likelihood that judges and juries will look to character as an explanation for behavior and a justification for punishment, the fact that motivations are considered to drive action and reflect character, and the propensity of jurors and other audiences to root for likeable characters (p. 73-74).Another useful set of passages focuses on the difference between showing and telling in narrative, as well as how to use shifts of perspective to integrate individuals' own words into a narrative. This section provides a helpful summary of different narrative points of view from which stories can be told, a resource that could be quite helpful to beginning storytellers. This chapter, focusing on style, is the most useful-and the most up-to-date-of the book. Meyer's chapter on setting is also quite useful, particularly, the dissection of the petitioner's brief in Reck v. Reigen, which shows how the structure of the factual narrative complements the structure of the legal argument. Meyer then compares Reck to Miranda v. Arizona, where a discussion of setting is absent, to show the importance of what is unseen.For those new to storytelling, the text also provides other useful advice, such as beginning with the desired ending. …