In persuasion theory, the first frame wins. By reciting a prima facie script during opening statements, you force the judge and jury to view the evidence through your lens. If you establish that the defendant prima facie breached a contract, the defense is immediately on their heels trying to rebut the "obvious."
Tessa Ensler is a ruthless, sharp-tongued criminal defense barrister at the top of her game. She lives by the legal principle of prima facie (“on its face”): the evidence, on its surface, determines guilt. She defends men accused of sexual assault, tearing apart victims’ testimonies with surgical precision. “The law is the law,” she insists. “Feelings don’t matter. Facts do.”
Then she is raped by a charming male colleague. Overnight, the hunter becomes the prey. The second half of the play forces Tessa—and the audience—to confront the brutal gap between legal truth and lived experience.
An AI can scan discovery documents and output: prima facie script
"Prima facie script for fraud found: (1) Misrepresentation identified in email dated 10/2 – Yes; (2) Knowledge of falsity – Yes (contradictory memo); (3) Intent to induce reliance – Yes; (4) Justifiable reliance – pending; (5) Damages – $2.3M."
This does not replace lawyers, but it allows firms to run 100 prima facie scripts per hour. The lawyer’s job becomes editing the AI’s script for strategy and nuance.
Legal professionals use a prima facie script for three distinct reasons: In persuasion theory, the first frame wins
A prima facie script is a logical flow that answers one question: If everything the plaintiff says is true, does the law provide a remedy?
For example, in a negligence case, the prima facie script is rigid:
If any of these four lines are missing from the script, the case fails at first sight. "Prima facie script for fraud found: (1) Misrepresentation
To live wisely is to recognize that every moment offers only a prima facie script. The evidence we have is never all the evidence; the story we tell is never the full story. This is not a counsel of paralysis—we must act on first impressions to function. But it is a counsel of provisionality. The mature mind holds its prima facie script in pencil, not ink, always ready to revise when new facts emerge.
In an age of instant judgments, viral headlines, and algorithmic confirmation bias, the ability to question one's own first script is a moral and intellectual discipline. The question is not whether we write prima facie scripts—we always will. The question is whether we remember that they are only the first page, not the final chapter.