Using the Elements of Rhythm, Flow, and Tone to Create a More Effective and Persuasive Acoustic Experience in Legal Writing

Abstract

The neurological mechanisms that operate to perceive and be influenced by music are the same ones (or many of the same ones) that operate in the brain for language. Rhythm, flow, and tone are essential components of music, and, therefore, essential components of well-written prose. Such components must be consciously incorporated by attorneys into their persuasive legal writing. By doing so, legal writers encourage readers to pay more attention to the text, facilitate a more enjoyable experience, and entice readers to ultimately agree. The paper offers background on evolutionary psychology. It explores how human and protohuman brains evolved through natural selection. It then explores the scholarship of biomusicology and explains the neurological overlap of music and language - musilanguage. The paper then examines the writings of Cardozo, Easterbrook, Hemingway, Jackson, and others to reveal how they effectively incorporated musilanguage components of rhythm, flow, and tone into their writings. Finally, the article provides practical ways for instructors to teach rhythm, flow, and tone in legal writing and demonstrates how attorneys can incorporate these musical elements in their writing and how the use of musically derived devices make legal writing more persuasive.

Keywords: Evolutionary psychology, legal writing, biomusicology, literary darwinsim, IRAC, Rhetoric, persuasive writing