fiction
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(How to Lose Yourself Just Enough to Find the Truth) The courtroom is a stage that denies it’s a stage.The script insists it’s nonfiction.The actors swear under oath. But make no mistake: the trial is theatre – sacred, structured, and dangerous. The bailiff calls “All rise,” and we do, obediently, as though waiting for the
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This short story was the First Place Winner in the “Historic Fiction” group of the NYCMidnight Writing challenge. Limited to only 500 words, the judges had this to say about the piece: “It uses the motif of music expertly” “The writing is beautiful, vivid and poetic, with a sharpness.” “I found the twist to be
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Auditions: strangers.Closing night: siblings.Strike: bitter custody battle where no one gets the good prop sword. That’s the cycle. Every show. Every time. The judge rules: Act I: The Rehearsal Cult You don’t join a cast. You’re abducted.Script in hand.Eyes wide.Someone already humming warm-ups like a Gregorian monk who overdosed on LaCroix. Day One: Hi, nice to
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Structuring a Closing Argument Like a One-Act Play The difference between a good closing argument and a forgettable one is the same difference between a standing ovation and a bored cough in row B: structure. Not evidence. Not emotion.Structure. Because whether you’re pleading for justice or staging a one-act in a black box theatre with three
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A meditation on holding professional gravity and creative chaos in the same breath I wore a tie to a deposition this morning and quoted Foucault to my kid at lunch. Both acts felt subversive. Let’s begin with the obvious: contradiction is not a flaw in the system. It is the system. I’m a trial lawyer who writes
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Why attorneys and shamans both use rhythm, repetition, and robes – and who does it better. Let’s start with the robes. Because if you’re going to call upon unseen forces, you might as well dress for the occasion. Attorneys and shamans, on the surface, have little in common. One files motions. The other smokes them.
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One knows the power of silence. The other interrupts it with a spreadsheet. I’ve worked with both. I’ve sat in rooms with freshly pressed suits and PowerPoint decks loaded with action items, quarterly projections, and slides titled things like “Growth Levers.” I’ve also been in green rooms with theater kids covered in stage makeup, drinking
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Metallica. Wu-Tang. Theme parks. Senators. Parents. Clients. Verdicts. All in six days. Still think your week was busy? In seven days, I went from the front row of concerts to the front lines of advocacy – answering calls from injured clients between bass drops, senate strategy sessions, and coasters that defy physics and patience. I
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Building Narrative Weight from Seemingly Mundane Objects There is a particular kind of arrogance that arises during early drafts, where we playwrights believe our themes will be obvious because we’ve written them in capital letters and made two characters argue about Nietzsche in the rain. They won’t be. What audiences remember – what they feel –
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Dramatic Archetypes in the Legal World – and How to Counter Them Litigation, for all its procedural decorum, is theatre. There’s a script (your pleadings), a stage (the courtroom), a captive audience (jury or judge), and, most importantly, characters. Now, some attorneys enter the courtroom like extras in a background deposition scene – unmemorable, beige,
Brian Brijbag 