UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA SCHOOL OF LAW — For Professor Anne Coughlin, the law is about much more than rules and doctrines — the law is a discourse that relies on storytelling for its descriptive claims and prescriptive guidance. For example, she pointed out, the holdings of cases are like “punchlines whose meanings emerge from the stories that judges tell to support them.” Yet, she said, lawmakers over the generations have been inattentive and even hostile to the stories of women and girls, as well as those of people of color, LGBTQ individuals and Native Americans.