A 9/11 Story

If you want people to care, you have to tell a story, as in-house columnist Mark Herrmann explains.

If you want people to care, you have to tell a story.

For example, here’s part of the toast I recently gave at my daughter’s wedding:

“On September 11, 2001, we lived in Cleveland, but we watched on television the horrifying images of the Twin Towers crashing to earth in New York City. We watched thousands of people die before our eyes. That night, my 14-year-old daughter went up to her bedroom to go to sleep. I went upstairs a few minutes later to say goodnight to her. I found her sitting on the side of her bed with a book in her lap. She was reading the Mourner’s Kaddish— the Jewish prayer for the dead.

“In the words of Don McLean: ‘This world was never meant for one as beautiful as you.‘”

That’s a story.

(I sure may be a buzzkill at a wedding, but that’s another matter. You have to admit that it’s a story.)

Naturally, you can tell stories that are less touching. Every case that you’ve ever been involved in, for example, is a story. It may not be a particularly exciting story, but you can explain it as a story.

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For example:

James Boswell stood 6 foot 7 and was a forward for the Chicago Bulls. One day, he was using an exercise ball to do some strength conditioning. [And the ball exploded, and Boswell was hurt, and the insurance company didn’t pay, and whatever.]”

See? A story.

It starts at the beginning. It moves through the middle and ends at . . . take a guess . . . the end. Even if it’s a bad story, you’ll be able to follow along. And if it’s a good story, it might do far more than communicate. It might teach you, or make you smile, or make you laugh, or bring a tear to your eye.

But it’s a story.

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Why is it that people don’t understand the need to tell a story?

You ask for the description of a case, and you’re told right out of the blocks that:

“This Smithson case grew out of the previous Smithson case in which BigCo (now HugeCo) allegedly. . . . ”

I’m lost. I don’t know what you’re talking about. And I’m pretty damned sure that, if I did know what you were talking about, I wouldn’t care.

Every case is a story. Every precedent that you cite, every case that you defend, every matter that someone else describes to you. They’re all stories.

(When that daughter of mine was much younger, I used to tell her, and her brother, stories about Greek myths, and the Civil War, and a bunch of other things. Every once in a while, the kids would get suspicious: “Hey, Dad — you’re not trying to teach us something, are you?” I’d calm them down: “Oh, no. Of course not. I’m just telling you a story.” I wonder why all third-grade teachers don’t just tell stories.)

(I once heard Erwin Chemerinsky give a talk about the preceding Supreme Court Term. It was wonderful — because each case was a story: “John Johnson broke into a liquor store. As he left, the police, . . . . The Supreme Court, by a five to four vote, held that the evidence was not admissible.”

A story. Not: “In United States v. Johnson, 500 S. Ct. 619 (2020), a divided Court held . . . . . ” That’s the same information, but it’s not a story.)

If you want people to read what you write, or listen to what you say, or even comprehend what you’re talking about, start at the beginning. Explain where the story starts in short words and simple sentences. And then move forward, in chronological order, to the end.

That’s not always the rule, of course.

But start there.

After you’ve proved that you can find the stories in what you’re expressing, then you can move on to the advanced class — of flashbacks, and so on.

But that’s later.

For now, just tell stories.

Stories.


Mark Herrmann spent 17 years as a partner at a leading international law firm and is now responsible for litigation and employment matters at a large international company. He is the author of The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Practicing Law and Inside Straight: Advice About Lawyering, In-House And Out, That Only The Internet Could Provide (affiliate links). You can reach him by email at inhouse@abovethelaw.com.