Legal Definitions - law and literature

Definition: Law and literature is the study of how law and legal institutions are depicted in literature. It can also refer to the application of literary theory to legal texts.

Examples:

• Examining how lawyers and legal institutions are portrayed in novels, plays, and other works of literature to understand how a culture views law.
• Applying literary theory to legal texts to analyze lawyers' rhetoric, logic, and style, as well as legal syntax and semantics.

For example, a law and literature scholar might analyze how the character of Atticus Finch in Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird" represents a certain view of the legal profession and justice in the American South during the 1930s. Or, they might examine the use of metaphor and symbolism in a Supreme Court opinion to understand how the court is shaping public perception of a legal issue.