Rhetoric, Persuasion, and Modern Legal Writing: The Pen Is Mightier

Classical rhetorical techniques can enhance the persuasiveness of Supreme Court opinions by making their language clear, lively, and memorable. This book focuses on three techniques—“invention” (creation of arguments), “arrangement” (organization), and “style” (word choice)—in the work of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Robert Jackson, Hugo Black, William Brennan, and Antonin Scalia, respectively. The justices featured here contributed to the Court’s rhetorical legacy in different ways, but all...