LESLIE CULVER

Culver's interdisciplinary research and scholarship focuses broadly on identity performance in the legal profession.

Identity Performance and Cultural Awareness

Her work first explores identity performance and cultural awareness through co-cultural theory—a formative communication theory that legal scholars have largely overlooked. Rooted in anthropology and feminist communication, this theory provides a micro-analysis of how non-dominant cultures communicate and negotiate their identity within dominant cultures. Culver's scholarship represents the first extension of co-cultural theory into legal studies, introducing her coined term "conscious identity performance" to examine the performance strategies lawyers employ.

Her goal is to integrate identity conversations into legal education, empowering students toward cultural consciousness through comprehensive identity performance tools.

Identity Performance and Legal Analysis

Second, her work examines identity performance within legal analysis itself. Drawing from contemporary argumentation theory, Culver argues that legal analysis achieves maximum effectiveness through pedagogy grounded in rhetoric and argumentation. To advance this approach, she developed a Rhetorical Praxis that modernizes the classical rhetorical canons for effective legal analysis. For more information on this Praxis, see her forthcoming article.