Finding Luis: A Creative Nonfiction Account of Law & Society

This essay explores the contradictions in legal theory and human experience through creative nonfiction. Its main purpose is to argue that a truly just society requires acknowledging the profound influence of individual narratives on the law. This is supported by blending personal narratives, critical analysis, and philosophical inquiry to reveal the gap between codified law and lived realities for marginalized individuals. This unique Legal Poetics methodology employs a series of six vignettes, such as the author's and Luis's shared experiences with traumatic brain injury and the denial of justice, as data. By integrating autoethnography, law as narrative, and performativity theories, it challenges law's fictional objectivity and positions it as a dynamic, evolving poem, continuously re-legislated by collective imagination and empathy. Ultimately, it is a quest for interconnectedness, where justice emerges from shared humanity and the co-creation of new narratives, lighting a path for us to continue in solidarity.