The Language of Law School This page intentionally left blank

particular issue selected for organizing this issue is also mentioned in a casual
manner. As the student proceeds, the professor encourages her with positive
backchanneling (“Right”; “Okay”). Note that through the framing commentary
and questioning, the professor is essentially providing the links needed to move
from one part of the narrative to another.
Thus, following this smooth opening, the professor continues to prompt the
student, using these highly structured question frames, guiding her through a dis-
cussion of how legal categories apply to the facts of the case. After eliciting one
side of the argument, he signals a shift to the other side, asking the student to de-
scribe “something” that goes in the other “direction”: “What’s the something?” The
student responds, “Well, that she was able to quit her job, which she did do.” The
professor both slightly corrects and builds on this: “Well, let’s just say, ‘give up job.’
Let’s just say, ‘give up job.’ It’s going in this direction. I guess we would have to ask
two questions about that.” A great deal of the work of narrative cohesion is done
as the professor takes each response and places it in the larger setting of a legal story,
which is not simply about the conflict at issue but about the process by which a
legal resolution can be reached. Notice also the repetition here as both student and
professor begin turns with “well”; the student’s next turn continues this pattern:
“Well, only if he- he sought that term.” (We will see more substantial versions of
this cohesion-creating repetition below.)
The basic semantico-referential structure of the dialogue, as it is unfolded
by the professor, proceeds as follows: (a) first, a recitation of relevant facts; (b) a
statement of the grandfather’s estate’s position; (c) an examination of the argu-
ment for the granddaughter, leading to (d) an exchange delving into whether the
granddaughter’s actions could constitute “consideration” in this case, with par-
ticular attention to the possible application of the categories of “benefit” and “det-
riment” to the facts; (e) a brief analogy to a previous similar case; (f) a return to the
consideration problem in 
this
 case, focusing now on whether the granddaughter’s

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Professorial Style in Context
147
return promise had been “sought”; (g) a discussion of the remedy the granddaugh-
ter had requested using an estoppel argument and dissection of the requirements
for estoppel. Although the student is clearly an active participant in the dialogue,
the professor is in charge, lingering over a point until he is satisfied that discus-
sion has been exhausted, and then moving on. In his turns, the professor fre-
quently provides the necessary legal-discursive framework for the student’s
responses:
Transcript 7.2 [4/17/11, 14]
Prof.:
[end of 1.15 turn]
 We only have those two questions. Is the thing given as a
benefit to the promisor or a detriment to the promisee, and is it given in
exchange for the promisor’s promise and is the promisor’s promise given
in exchange for that benefit or detriment, right? We always ask those two
questions. Restatement Section 71 puts it in black-and-white, straightfor-
ward, nice and simple, all right? Okay. In the actual case, to get back to the
actual case, Ms. B., there’s no question, I guess, that the promise induced
the giving up of job?
Prof.:
[ . . . later in same class session, end of 1.33 turn . . . ] 
but, it also had
something to do with the following: “Induce the change of position,” this
is page ninety-six, “in accordance with a real or apparent intention of the