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Abstract: While at first glance transactional documents may seem simply like expository texts that aim to educate the audience, transactional documents are complex, multi-faceted documents. They seek to guide, inform, and influence the thoughts, behaviors, and actions of the transacting parties and third-party decision makers. In crafting transactional documents, drafters have two primary goals: to facilitate performance by the transacting parties as intended and, if necessary, to encourage third-party decision makers to interpret the document as intended. In essence, these dual goals relate directly to the persuasive nature of transactional documents. By conceptualizing transactional documents as persuasive documents, drafters can draw upon narrative-based techniques to better achieve the dual goals of transactional documents.
Current scholarship on narrative techniques within the field of applied legal storytelling has largely ignored transactional drafting despite the fact that the majority of lawyers engage in transactional work. This article follows our previous publications on how transactional lawyers can more effectively draft transactional documents by incorporating narrative techniques. Our critical examination in this article of the persuasive nature of transactional documents and how narrative techniques can be used to leverage that persuasiveness will advance this discipline as well as legal writing and the practice of law more generally. A good story is compelling and a powerful means of persuading its audience to respond as the author intended. Like a good story, a transactional document can be drafted to be a powerful and persuasive document that both facilitates performance by the transacting parties and encourages third-party decision makers to interpret the document as intended.
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