Patrick Barry, University of Michigan Law School – Art and Advocacy

Being an advocate is important; so, what’s the most effective process for becoming one?

Patrick Barry, clinical assistant professor at the University of Michigan Law School, takes a trip to find the answer.

Patrick Barry is a clinical assistant professor and the director of digital academic initiatives at the University of Michigan Law School, as well as a visiting lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School and the UCLA School of Law.  An All-American soccer player in college, Patrick is the author of twelve books, and he has also created four online series for the educational platform Coursera, including
“Good with Words: Writing and Editing” and “AI for Lawyers and Other Advocates.” Among his teaching awards are the Wayne Booth Prize for Excellence in Teaching, the Provost’s Innovation in Teaching Prize, and the Outstanding Research Mentor Award. His research focuses on persuasion, creativity, team, dynamics, and artificial intelligence, and he frequently collaborates with law firms, government agencies, and nonprofit organizations.

Art and Advocacy

I like taking lawyers and law students to art museums. Sometimes our trips are built into the courses I teach. Other times they’re standalone events and workshops. But the goal is always the same: Try to learn as much as possible not just from the artists whose work appears in the museums but from the professional curators in charge of skillfully putting that work on display. 

We take this approach because one of the core functions of the legal profession—advocacy—is in many ways an act of curation. It requires thematic thinking. It requires informed selection. It places a huge premium on context, contrast, and having a bold, transformative vision. Most of all, though, it involves the imaginative capacity to simultaneously connect with an audience and push them to look at a case, person, place, issue, or even entire worldview in a completely new way. 

A compliment paid to the longtime curator of the Pasadena Art Museum, Bill Agee, captures that last quality well. “Studying an artist or a painting with Bill could feel like a great adventure,” one of his former students, herself a curator, observed after Agee’s death in 2023.  She added that “he often addressed his audience as ‘we,’ implying that they were with him in the search for further understanding.” 

That’s what the best advocates do too. They don’t force their perspective on people. They don’t bludgeon us with dogma and irrelevant details. They instead serve as knowledgeably creative guides. Like skillful curators, their role is to focus our attention in a way that ultimately empowers us to make more-informed, evidence-based judgments and decisions. Illumination—not coercion—is the goal.