This session is a StorySlam storytelling competition! Audience members (arranged in advance by the presenters but with room for “walk-ups”) will tell a true, three-to-five-minute story that ties in with a common theme: “My Most Creative Moment as a Lawyer.” Judges, selected from the audience, will then vote by secret ballot to rank the stories based on content and delivery. The storyteller with the highest-scoring story wins a prize!
While the judges deliberate and tally scores, your hosts (presenters) will draw upon our academic experience in applied legal storytelling and performative experience as storytellers to provide insight about how storytelling in general, and a storytelling exercise, have value in clinical legal education. For example, it works as a reflective classroom activity, a way to hone a pedagogical device, or an extracurricular ice breaker among a school’s clinical program. It can also foster fun, engaging conversation about what makes a good legal story work.
Participants and attendees will also go home* with a one-page “takeaways” sheet that summarizes the theoretical underpinnings of the session. This sheet will also feature a selected bibliography.
*Virtually speaking, of course.