Section Watches a Little TV at Midyear Meeting

by Michael Asimow^*

Seated from left: Prof. Michael Asimow, Charles Rosenberg, Bill Fordes, Alfonso Moreno, Jill Goldsmith, and Steven Bell.

The Practice. Law and Order. Ally McBeal. L.A. Law. Perry Mason. The Defenders. Most of us watch and enjoy television shows about lawyers, at least sometimes, but should we take them seriously?

The Portrayal of Lawyers on Television, a standing-room-only program mounted by the Section at the Mid Year Meeting, did exactly that. Most people get most of their information about law and lawyers from watching television and movies. Popular culture teaches them what to expect from the legal system and how lawyers should be behaving in the courtroom. We ought to know what they're learning.

The program, which took place at the Museum of Television and Radio in Beverly Hills, started with a series of clips from some of the most famous dramatic law shows of the past and present. The father-son law firm in The Defenders (an honored show from the 1960's) tackled the blacklist while Perry Mason worked his courtroom magic for the umpteenth time. Stuart Markowitz of L.A. Law tried to disclaim a client=s bequest while the prosecutors on Law and Order struggled with a tape-recording made by a dying victim. Finally, in the famous crossover episode, both Ally McBeal and the lawyers of The Practice collaborated on a big murder case, using Plan B to pin the crime on somebody other than the client..

The program then turned to a panel discussion led by Museum director Steven Bell. The panelists were Charles Rosenberg, an L. A. lawyer who used to be the technical adviser to L. A. Law; Alfonso Moreno and Jill Goldsmith, both lawyers and writers on The Practice; Bill Fordes, a lawyer and writer on Law and Order; and Michael Asimow, professor at UCLA Law School and popular culture junkie.

The panelists stressed that today's law shows try hard to concentrate on current legal and ethical issues (WESTLAW is a great asset for the writers). They get the law and procedures as right as they can, given the constraints of presenting a story in 47 minutes. Ally McBeal is the exception, but it's more a relationship show that happens to be set in a law office. Today, TV lawyers must be nuanced characters who struggle with their cases and their lives. Viewers no longer accept the formulaic nonsense of Perry Mason, whose clever cross-examinations always pulled a rabbit out of the hat.

Lawyers on TV have been a fixture for about 50 years and seem to command a large audience, year in and year out. We're fortunate that TV lawyers are usually presented in a favorable light, unlike their counterparts in film who are often portrayed as scum. It behooves all of us to pay attention to the way our profession is depicted on both the big and small screens.

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