I Remember Atticus: Inspiring Stories Every Trial Lawyer Should Know.

Jim M. Perdue State Bar of Texas www.texasbarcle.com 149pp., $45 cloth, $30 paper

Great teachers have always known that some lessons are best taught by telling a story. Complex issues can be difficult to explain in abstract language; a powerful story about a real person, told in concrete terms, can make the difference between clarity and confusion.

Trial lawyers know the value of storytelling, especially to persuade a jury. But where can they find true stories that illustrate case themes? In I Remember Atticus, noted trial lawyer Jim Perdue has given his colleagues a new resource. He subtitles his collection "inspiring stories every trial lawyer should know"--and that's exactly what he delivers.

Perdue has written his stories the way he has told them in the courtroom, at education programs, and in law school classrooms. He separates them into chapters on the values they illustrate--faith, freedom, equality, courage, and perseverance--and ties them together with commentary. He shows his skill as a teacher, leading the reader through the stories to the practical goals of trial.

In one chapter, he draws on mostly biblical and apocryphal sources to argue that faith is important to our understanding of justice and that religious teachings have helped shape the law. He starts with Suzanna, a beautiful woman accused of adultery by two prominent officials after she refused their advances, whose story demonstrates the importance of separating witnesses. He then moves to the many parables of Jesus. Although individually brief, they show how a simple story can illustrate a complex lesson.

In later chapters, the stories--from American and British legal cases--are longer and more elaborate. Many are widely known, such as the tale of Edward Bushell, a brave juror at the 1670 London trial of Quakers William Penn and William Mead. They were charged with sedition for conducting a religious service in the street after the king's men had closed their church. Bushell persuaded his fellow jurors to resist the judges' pressure to convict, because there was no evidence that the defendents had committed a crime.

Bushell and three other jurors were imprisoned for refusing to submit to the will of the judges. The New York Times named their habeas corpus appeal the most important case of the millennium because it solidly upheld the independence of the jury. Perdue writes:

   Free, incorruptible juries do things beyond
   what representatives dependent on campaign
   contributions are willing to do. Jurors
   responsible for these judgments give no
   reasons fox their actions and seek nothing
   for themselves..... And thanks to Bushell's
   case, whether or not their decision is popular
   with authorities or the public, they remain
   free of any personal criticism, contempt,
   or retribution.

Other stories are not as well known. For instance, instead of using Brown v. Board of Education to illustrate the value of equality, Perdue cites its companion case, Briggs v. Elliott, as an example of perseverance. In that case Rev. Joseph DeLaine fought hard to get school buses and better schools for the minority residents of his South Carolina community, and he paid the price: He lost his teaching position. His wife, sisters, and niece were fired from their jobs. His church was vandalized, and his house was burned down.

But DeLaine never gave up his fight, and the NAACP and Thurgood Marshall eventually took on his cause. The result was one of a pair of cases before the U.S. Supreme Court that changed the face of a segregated society.

Perdue diverges from this theme of storytelling in the final two chapters. In "Facts Every Trial Lawyer Should Know," he attacks probusiness myths about the civil justice system. He then discusses how inspiring stories can illustrate case themes. These final sections are full of statistics and are not as easy to read as the earlier chapters, but they contain useful information.

Perdue's book is both practical and inspirational. Whether or not you use it to improve your arguments at trial, it may well remind you of why you chose--and remain in--this profession.

"Being a trial lawyer is hard cheese," Perdue writes. "When I become disheartened, I remember the stories in this book."

SARA HOFFMAN JURAND is an associate editor of TRIAL.