“…Chief among the vast repertoire of strategies lawyers can manipulate to influence the judge/jury’s perceptions and (non-)affiliation are the ways in which characters and events are represented in courtroom narratives (Adelsward et al, 1988; Cecconi, 2008; Rosulek, 2008). These choices, collectively called ‘representational strategies’ (Fowler, 1991; Van Dijk, 1993; Rosulek, 2008; Khosravinik, 2010), refer to the selection of words describing persons and events that are congenial to the story version claimed and supported by the speaker, the ‘fitting of words to deeds’ (Danet, 1976). These mechanisms allow lawyers to not only highlight, silence or contest aspects of the identity of characters in their narratives, but also to position them in relation to each other by portraying them as exercising (or lacking in) agency, power and control over another actor, thereby indicating responsibility (or lack thereof) for such acts.…”