The Seven Ways Lawyers Win: Using Classical Style to Persuade Juries

The classical styles of speech were not abstract theories but practical tools, long refined and tested for their persuasive power. Originating in antiquity, preserved through monastic study, expanded by continental scholars after 1066, and revitalized during the Renaissance, these styles were designed to shape how listeners think, feel, and decide. By the sixteenth century, skilled speakers understood not only what to say, but how to say it in order to produce specific effects on an audience. This tradition was informed by extensive rhetorical scholarship, none more influential than the work of the ancient Greek rhetorician Hermogenes. His treatise, The Seven Capital Stars, circulated widely by 1560 and offered a systematic framework for controlling tone, clarity, emotional weight, and authority—concerns that remain central to effective advocacy today.

Every spoken argument in the courtroom contains these stylistic elements in a particular balance, and every lawyer, like every witness or client, tends to favor certain styles over others. Advocates who can integrate multiple styles into a coherent whole project credibility and command. By contrast, jurors instinctively notice stylistic mismatches: polished professionals who speak crudely, or unsophisticated witnesses who suddenly adopt inflated, unnatural language. At times, lawyers intentionally juxtapose opposing styles—clarity against grandeur, simplicity against moral force—within a single argument to create contrast, emphasis, and persuasive tension.

Shakespeare was a consummate master of these stylistic forces, using them to shape audience perception and emotional response. In the courtroom, these same forces function as strategic tools for guiding juror attention, framing meaning, and influencing judgment. Each style operates as a distinct mode of persuasion, and the most effective trial attorneys move fluidly among them, choosing the right style for the right moment.

Here are the Seven Styles—or “Seven Capital Stars,” as Hermogenes called them:

Clarity

Easy-to-understand words with clear organization — To inform

Grandeur

Serious topics, sophisticated words, circumlocution, splendor, and largess — To inspire

Beauty

Pretty words, phrases, imagery, and structure — To please

Speed

The use of tempo, rhythm, volubility to create a flow — To sweep away

Ethos

Expressive of character or personal authority — To engender confidence in the speaker

Verity

Direct, open, powerful expression of emotions, especially anger or anguish — To force

Gravity

The blend of the six into a harmonious and persuasive whole

Examples of the Seven Styles

Below are clear, strong examples from literature that illustrate each of Hermogenes’ Seven Capital Stars of style. These passages are widely recognized and vividly embody each stylistic quality.

1. Clarity — To Inform

Style qualities: straightforward, orderly, easily understood.

Example: George Orwell, “Politics and the English Language”

“The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms…”

Why it fits: Orwell deliberately prioritizes precision, simplicity, and transparency—hallmarks of Clarity.

2. Grandeur — To Inspire

Style qualities: majestic, formal, elevated, expansive.

Example: John Milton, “Paradise Lost”

“A mind not to be changed by place or time.

The mind is its own place, and in itself

Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.”

Why it fits: Milton’s elevated diction, philosophical tone, and sweeping scope embody the grandeur and seriousness Hermogenes describes.

3. Beauty — To Please

Style qualities: graceful, musical, imagistic, pleasing to the senses.

Example: John Keats, “Ode to a Nightingale”

“Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!

No hungry generations tread thee down…”

Why it fits: Keats’ language is lush, sensory, and melodious. The emotional beauty and imagery are central, not just the ideas.

4. Speed — To Sweep Away

Style qualities: rapid movement, momentum, quick shifts, rhythmic intensity.

Example: Shakespeare, “Hamlet” (Act 1, Scene 5)

“Haste me to know’t, that I, with wings as swift

As meditation or the thoughts of love,

May sweep to my revenge.”

Why it fits: Hamlet’s language accelerates—short phrases, urgency, movement—capturing the sweeping force of Speed.

Another good Speed example:

Charles Dickens, “A Tale of Two Cities”

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness…”

The rapid binary contrasts create momentum and emotional velocity.

5. Ethos — To Engender Confidence

Style qualities: authoritative, trustworthy, morally grounded, expressing character.

Example: Atticus Finch’s closing argument, “To Kill a Mockingbird”

“But there is one way in this country in which all men are created equal—there is one human institution that makes a pauper the equal of a Rockefeller… That institution, gentlemen, is a court.”

Why it fits: Atticus’ moral clarity, calm authority, and ethical appeal evoke deep trust—classical ethos.

6. Verity — To Force

Style qualities: blunt truth, emotional power, directness, raw honesty.

Example: Edgar Allan Poe, “The Tell-Tale Heart”

“Villains!” I shrieked, “dissemble no more! I admit the deed!—tear up the planks! here, here!—It is the beating of his hideous heart!”

Why it fits: An explosive, direct confession delivered with intense emotional force—classic Verity.

Another example:

Emily Dickinson

“Tell all the truth but tell it slant—”

Dickinson’s compressed directness embodies her trademark piercing honesty.

7. Gravity — Harmonious Balance

Style qualities: uniting the previous six styles into a persuasive, weighty whole.

Example: Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address

“The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.”

Why it fits:

• Clarity: plain words

• Grandeur: solemn purpose

• Beauty: rhythmic cadences

• Speed: efficient progression

• Ethos: moral authority

• Verity: profound, direct truth

The speech exemplifies stylistic harmony—gravity in its purest form.