Glenn is looking at lawyers and what people think about them. As a lawyer, I usually am disappointed at how badly lawyers are portrayed in contemporary TV/movies. Even a pro-plaintiff picture like Erin Brockovich is about how the non-lawyer paralegal -- Julia Roberts -- forces the lawyers, against their own apparent natures, to do the right thing and strike a blow for the people.
The question we need to be asking is why there is such an anti-lawyer bias being played out in contempo media? What happened to the lawyer heroes -- Perry Mason, Owen Marshall, Counselor at Law, even the L.A. Law characters? Why is it that the current view of lawyers seems to be out of Boston Legal: the schmuck [James Spader] or the buffoon [William Shatner]?
24 years into law practice, I can guarantee that the jerks portrayed on TV wouldn't last long in the real world. The vast majority of lawyers I have known over the past quarter century have truly been devoted to serving their clients and maing a living doing so.
But I guess that doesn't make a good movie or TV show. Wait -- except for this one.
1 comment:
Alan Shore (James Spader) on Boston Legal may have been a womanizer, and definitely smarmy but he was not a schmuck. He was brillant, articulate, supremely dedicated to his clients and willing to bend the rules of law edicate in order to make sure that justice and fairness won out. Truthfully he is better than most real lawyers and if he actually existed it is Alan Shore who I would want to defend me if my life and freedom were in the balance. I wish there were more lawyers like him in the courtroom. The womanizing and the smarm just made him quirky and fun to watch...the rest is what we wish lawyers truly would be.
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