THE IMPORTANCE OF RHETORICAL PERSPECTIVE IN AMERICAN LEGAL EDUCATION AND IN AMERICAN LEGAL PRACTICE

American legal practice and American legal education have tended to embrace a perspective the prioritizes the bureaucracy by viewing human beings as objects that it can manipulate for purposes of making legal and policy decisions. A rhetorical perspective, however, brings about a fuller realization of individual contexts and, more importantly, the human beings who comprise those contexts. A rhetorical perspective in practice means that lawyers, judges, and policymakers go further in actively listening to clients and making arguments with greater awareness of each unique situation. Such a perspective contributes to improving both legal practice and law pedagogy.