A rough guide to what figures of rhetoric you can use in a legal argument

Figures of rhetoric are rhetorical strategies, made up of a number of individual rhetoricial techniques, that you can use either to acheive certain objectives or to help create certain linguistic effects, such as adding emphasis to the points you are making. The three key ones are the figures of ethos (demonstrating credibility), pathos (appeals to the emotions) and logos (appeals to logic) and the ancient rhetoricians firmly believed that in order to be persuasive all three of those elements needed to be present. In a legal context, ethos is normally demonstrated when opening or in an introduction; the figures of logos (logic) would normally be included in your legal argument, and the figures of pathos (appeals to the emotions) would normally be incorporated into a closing speech, along with the other primary elements. However, whilst all advocates would normally use ethos, logos and pathos as key elements of a trial, they would also emphasise certain aspects or underplay others by using some of the following techniques, which you can find on the website.

On the website you can find the figures of amplification, Balance, Definition, Description, Division, Ethos, Excess, Grammar, Interruption, Logos, Naming, Obscuring, Omission, Order, Overstatement, Parallelism, Pathos, Place, Play, Refutation, Repetition, Rhythm,Sound,Substitution,Summary,Time, and Wordplay. Each of these rhetorical strategies sub-divides into a number of individual rhetorical techniques, and you can find information on all of these individual techniques (approximately 300 in all) by drilling down into each one. The information on individual rhetorical techniques is reproduced with permission from the Silva Rhetoricae website, as are the overview pages.  

Whilst it is good to know about individual rhetorical techniques, it is slightly more helpful to have a rough idea of which rhetorical figures you may use at different points, such as which ones might be applicable in the introduction, statement of facts, argument summary, legal argument, during witness handling and as part of your closing speech. This is just a rough guide, so you will have to use your own judgement on which linguistic techniques might work best, under any given set of circumstances. However, this should give you some ideas to get you started.

Introduction (Exordium)

• Figures of ethos 
• Figures of amplification 

Some light touches of elegance, such as 

Figures of rhythm
Figures of sound
Figures of repetition

may be usefully added but don't go mad. 

Statements of facts

• Figures of definition
• Figures of description 
• Figures of naming
• Figures of substitution
• Figures of place 
• Figures of repetition 
• Figures of rhythm
• Figures of sound 
• Figures of time 

Argument summary

• Figures of summary
• Figures of division 
• Figures of order 

Legal arguments

• Figures of logos 
• Figures of balance
• Figures of division 

Evidence theoretically favourable to your case theory (examination in chief and re-examination)

• Figures of amplification
• Figures of repetition
• Figures of balance
• Figures of excess
• Figures of obscuring
• Figures of omission 
• Figures of over-statement
• Figures of parallelism
• Figures of reasoning 
• Figures of refutation 

Evidence that theoretically undermines your case theory - cross examination

• Figures of refutation
• Figures of amplification
• Figures of repetition 
• Figures of balance
• Figures of excess 
• Figures of obscuring 
• Figures of omission 
• Figures of over-statement 
• Figures of parallelism 
• Figures of reasoning 
 

Closing speech (peroration)

• Figures of amplification 
• Figures of description 
• Figures of excess
• Figures of naming 
• Figures of interruption 
• Figures of over-statement 
• Figures of pathos 
• Figures of summary 
• Figures of order 
• Figures of logos 
• Figures of refutation 
• Figures of reasoning 
• Figures of repetition 
• Figures of rhythm 
• Figures of sound 
• Figures of substitution 
• Figures of time 
• Figures of place 
• Figures of parallelism 
• Figures of ethos
• Figures of wordplay 
• Figures of play 

One of the long term objectives with this part of the website is to identify examples drawn from actual cases of all of these techniques being used, informally known as the "Where's Wally Rhetoric project". So if, when you are reading through some of the cases found on the website from some of the great legal orators such as Curran and Erskine who were masters of legal rhetoric, you find examples of some of these individual rhetorical techniques, then please let us know which rhetorical technique you have spotted, where you found it (case and page number) and your name, and we will upload that example onto the website as a legal example under that specific rhetorical technique, and we will credit the name of whoever identified it! This will be publicly viewable.