Linda Edwards is the E.L. Cord Foundation Professor of Law at the William S. Boyd School of Law.On June 19, she provided commentary on the KNPR segment Telling A Good (Legal) Story.
"Cognitive psychology has demonstrated more and more every day that all of see the world through a certain sort of frame. We don't take in information neutrally and then decide what to do with it. We instead, as a matter of cognitive psychology, in our brains already have a narrative or metaphoric perspective or frame that we are working within when we take in that new information, and we interpret it in a way that makes it as consistent as possible with the narrative frame we're working with," she said during the interview. "Any time there is any kind of discretion with regard to the facts or to professional decision making by either a judge or a jury, it's going to be tempered, seen through one of those metaphoric or narrative frames."
Professor Edwards is a national leader in the field of legal writing, having been awarded the 2009 Thomas Blackwell Award for her lifetime achievements in and contributions to the field.
