I must confess that I am guilty of binge watching TV series and watching legal TV shows is a bit of a guilty pleasure for me.
TV loves lawyers! and like many other lawyers, I am also partial to the sensationalized legal drama that glamourizes our profession in many ways, but are nonetheless still entertaining dramas.
I wanted to share with you my top ten legal shows that I’ve watched or currently watching (remember this is MY top ten so no “how can this be number 5!? type questions), I based this on compelling court-room drama, learning, legal terminology, practice and just all round ‘bad-assness’.
There’s always going to be debates about which is the most entertaining lawyer show and the fact is, we as a profession owe a great deal to the TV programs that have cast the practice of law in such a compelling light!
So here are my top ten legal tv shows!
1. ‘The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story’
As this deals with a true story, I obviously don’t need to say “spoiler alert” to this show! From the get-go, the performances in this 10 episode limited series are almost uniformly superb (with one glaring exception). With only a few minor fumbles this show deserves its place at number one; the roles fit all the actors like a glove!
This series tracks the 1990s real-life trial of O.J. Simpson, an American NFL star who was acquitted of the murder of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ron Goldman, in what is now known as “The Trial of the Century”.
The series is surprisingly, deliciously good, it meticulously explores the O.J. case which is great as I was to young to know anything. So for those old enough to remember the O.J. trial, perhaps American Crime Story brings a fresh perspective, focused by hindsight. For those people, like me, who were too young (or too far away) to remember, it’s a fascinating insight into the cruel whimsy of justice: although the LAPD was fairly exposed as racist and corrupt by the O.J. trial, it was at the expense of a different kind of justice.
In the end, there was no justice for Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman, two murder victims who were largely sidelined by the surrounding media circus – and who are sidelined again in American Crime Story. As Ron Goldman’s father laments in a tragic, impassioned speech: “My son has become a footnote in his own murder.”
This show deserves the number one spot!
2. SUITS
Suits would probably have been my number one show before American Crime Story came and stole me away with 10 episodes!
My next show to sell the Lawyer Dream is Suits! Who wouldn’t want to ditch law school and fast-track to the fast-lane as a protégé of the city’s hottest lawyer, the legendary Harvey Specter with his unabashed egoism.
Suits has delivered some of legal television’s finest one liners, including this Harvey Specter classic:
“That’s the difference between you and me. You want to lose small. I want to win big.”
Suits follows the legal lives of it’s main characters, Harvey Specter (the best closer in New York), Louis Lit (the scariest senior associate you have ever seen), Jessica Pearson (the fearless Managing Partner), Mike Ross (the graduate lawyer), Rachel (the best paralegal ever) and Donna (the legal secretary every lawyer wishes they had) at the elite New York based commercial law firm Pearson Hardman.
Of course, Pearson Hardman only recruits their graduate lawyers from Harvard and the story follows the legal adventures of young Mike Ross, who is a genius but a complete fraud and SPOILER ALERT actually never went to Harvard or any other law school but suddenly finds himself employed as Harvey’s associate.
Harvey and Mike become a legal dynamic duo as they battle with billable hours, malleable legal ethics and generally the lonely lives of narcissist lawyers that are battling it out for supreme legal domination. All of this occurs in a funny and entertaining way of course.
However, like many legal dramas, I feel there are some gigantic leaps between the life of lawyers as portrayed on Suits and every day life of lawyers.
But really, Harvey’s behaviour as a lawyer is some what unrealistic and flies in the face of everything any graduate lawyer has even learnt about professional courtesy, legal ethics and general life lessons about how to be a decent human being in the workplace! Whilst Harvey and Louis are fictional characters, perhaps a disclaimer should come with each episode just reminding viewers that if lawyers actually behaved this way, they would quickly be sued, unemployed or probably punched in the face.
If you haven’t already binge watched Suits, then set aside a weekend, or a couple of week nights when you don’t have Court at 9 am and sit back and enjoy, what legal life should be like according to Hollywood!
You may even pick up some dramatic negotiating skills and good one liners to use when talking to other lawyers and therefore binge watching Suits may even be considered a broad approach to your continuing legal education!
But please, let us rest with all the wannabe Harvey Specters!
3. HOW TO GET AWAY WITH MURDER
Being a lawyer is probably somewhat of a challenge, but with the way How to Get Away with Murder portrays the stressful act of attending law school, actually being a lawyer seems so easy!
Shonda Rhimes’ new procedural drama makes law school look like The Hunger Games. The show stars Viola Davis as Professor Annalise Keating, a cutthroat (as in, she might cut your throat) defense attorney who also teaches Criminal Law 100—or, as she likes to call it, ‘How to get away with murder’ — at the fictional Middleton University.
Since this is ShondaLand, some crazy shit goes down —it’s intentionally exaggerated, and that’s part of what makes them great. As unimaginable as some of the plot lines can be, though, How to Get Away with Murder is based on the actual American legal system (the legal issues i mean). If there is one thing to take away from this show as a lawyer it’s to always look at as much different approaches in tackling your case!
Of course there are many things the show gets wrong, from Annalise beginning class by saying, “Unlike many of my colleagues, I will not be teaching you how to analyze the law or theorize about it” — basically the underpinning of legal education since forever, to how she blows my mind by bringing her entire class to her law firm to hear from the defendants themselves — who basically waive their attorney-client privilege when they tell their story to a bunch of unaffiliated, unemployed students who have no obligation to keep their confidence.
And do these kids have other classes!? According to the American Bar Association (ABA), the accrediting body for law schools, full-time law students aren’t allowed to work more than 20 hours/week during the semester. Where do they find the time to go extorting information for sex and committing murders? Also Criminal law is no way only about murder, you learn about conspiracies, attempts, self-defense, burglary, sex crimes, death penalty, and on and on.
Of course, no one watches these shows for their accuracy, to be honest, a show all about law school would be terrible! It’s a lot of work, heavy old books, classes and boring weekends in the library studying for the Bar Finals, Law students wouldn’t even watch a show about law school. HTGAWM, like other procedurals, allows us to escape and gasp and wonder “who did it!?”. Its amazing!
4. Better Call Saul
Lol! Don’t judge me! I am in love with this show and with Saul! The inflatable Statue of Liberty above his office says it all:
“When the going gets tough, you don’t want a criminal lawyer, all right? You want a *criminal* lawyer.”
But, do you know how Saul became the crazily unethical man? Better call Saul is a spin-off prequel of Breaking Bad that follows the story of small-time lawyer James Morgan “Jimmy” McGill, six years before his appearance on Breaking Bad as Saul Goodman.
Jimmy violates ALL Rules of Professional Conduct and (more interestingly) the written and unwritten rules of law firms and we love his unethical and often illegal nature.
Despite this, it is tragic to watch Jimmy fail so hard at being a firm lawyer. Jimmy may not be as bright as his brother Chuck, but his heart is in the right place, as he truly cares about obtaining justice for Sandpiper residents. But his “Slippin Jimmy” persona just does not fit in at stuffy law firms, even with a managing partner who plays the guitar during the day.
5. The Good Wife
Since 2009, The Good Wife graced our screens with the classic ‘Clinton conundrum’ – what do you do when your hotshot politician husband has a very public affair…and is sent to prison? Alicia Florrick marched right into the elite law office of Lockhart/Gardner, plied a favour from a former flame and named partner, Will Gardner, and hurled herself into cutthroat competition with younger lawyers desperate for a graduate role.
Cue an inevitable (but absolutely addictive) love triangle spiced up by a weekly tour of compelling, and sometimes based-on-reality legal cases – ranging from dotcom courtroom duels to millionaire wife-murderer Colin Sweeney. Oh, and let’s not forget Kalinda, the breathlessly sexy and brilliant bisexual super-detective always on hand with the eleventh hour investigative breakthrough to save the day. Yes, The Good Wife offers the kind of world we all imagined we would surely inhabit in our lawyerly lives – and, obviously, do
But it is the character of Will Gardner, prodigy-lawyer and partner of the show’s legal firm, which really does it for me. Gardner (Josh Charles) is a young and viciously ambitious man who, has had to kill a part of himself to be at the top of his game. He can win a case with a nonchalant shrug, a thin smile and a killer line. He has no pity whatsoever for any of his adversaries, but falls for the woman he never forgot: Florrick, whom he dated at university.
Gardner is the archetype of the “ruthless lawyer” common in too many TV series, but with a twist: his love for her is all-encompassing, and will cost him dearly. Great show!
See you later for part 2!
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