Description
Book SynopsisInvestigates how students in a clinical legal education program learned to advocate effectively and ethically with clients abused by intimate partners. Demonstrates the importance of valuing clients as experts in their own lives and as equal partners in decision making.
Trade Review“There is so much to recommend about Britt’s excellent new book, but the aspect of this book that must not be lost is its emergence out of the author’s dedication to exploring the lived and material possibilities of rhetorical education in the twenty-first century. May we answer her call in law schools and rhetoric programs both.”
—Robin E. Jensen The Quarterly Journal of Speech
“Overall, Elizabeth C. Britt’s Reimagining Advocacy is an exceptionally important text to contemporary rhetorical studies.”
—Madeline Denison Argumentation and Advocacy
“Elizabeth Britt’s book shows us that lawyers are rhetorical agents, a connection that has been diminished over time. Her study of ‘embodied advocacies’ can help lawyers think more broadly about what advocacy means.”
—Kirsten K. Davis,Director of the Institute for Advancement of Legal Communication, Stetson University
“A really powerful book. Reimaging Advocacy makes a strong and sustained case for intervening in calcified systems of gendered abuse. This text is well supported and provides a great deal of richness by weaving together interviews and vivid reflections about a system that is all too often broken for the victims most in need. Importantly, Britt doesn’t succumb to the cynicism that is so in vogue in academic scholarship; instead, she does the hard work of producing creative, productive criticism that offers alternative frameworks and practices for aiding victims of abuse.”
—Suzanne Enck,University of North Texas
Table of ContentsContents
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Bodies, Perspectives, Advocacies
1. Attitudes toward Advocacy
2. At the Law School: Learning to Recognize the Expertise of Others
3. At the Hospital: Learning to Defer to Others
4. At the Courthouse: Learning to Support the Rhetorical Work of Others
Conclusion: Lessons
Appendix A: Research Methods
Appendix B: Interview Participants
Notes
Bibliography
Index
