VALUING WOMEN STORYTELLERS: WHAT THEY TALK ABOUT WHEN THEY TALK ABOUT LAW

Abstract

I urge literature upon lawyers and law students to teach how the culture of the law attracts and repels those who enter its province. Novels are profoundly useful tools to study human nature, and I teach these books as a strategy, not a panacea, to counter many of the ills attributed to legal education and lawyering today. Here, I offer two professionally written narratives, by and primarily about women, to illustrate not only an/other experience of the law, but one that highlights the avoidance of, and disdain for, the law and lawyers when personal, particularly family, relationships are at stake. Both books illustrate the negative import for our legal system when the law's operation does not reflect the female participants' morality, and how that lack affects our roles as advocates and decision-makers.