I love pop culture. If I had my way, I'd spend a ridiculous amount of time watching TV shows and movies. In one of my first law courses we actually spent a week studying the perception of law in pop culture. In class we watched Legally Blonde and we were required to watch a movie or TV show with a legal perspective for the tutorial. I jumped straight into the homework, watching the Legally Blonde sequel and numerous movies.
For tort law we also had a great deal of pop-culture injected. We, on occasion, watched excerpts from movies such as Scream and Home Alone and were required to list the torts that were on the screen.
Perhaps it was this lecturer-approved exposure early on in my degree that made me truly appreciate a good legal drama or sitcom in conjunction with my studies. Perhaps it was my long-lived love of pop culture and the characteristic was bound to emerge anyway. Whatever it was, I love a good legal tv show. I love the movies too, but I love that I can have a poor attention-span and still have an idea of what happened in a TV show!
So here goes, my favourite legal-themed tv shows, in no particular order:
1. Ally McBeal
I have recently begun watching Ally McBeal and am absolutely loving it! I tend to think of myself as fairly neurotic at times and watching Ally's adventures and dilemmas truly makes me feel good about myself. No matter how crazy I think I am, I am not seeing a dancing baby or bursting out in song in court. It's not just Ally's absolute madness that makes me love the show; I also love the way the other characters interact. It is entertaining and at it's best when Ally's dilemma's aren't at the forefront and the focus are on the strange cases the firm deals with. Did I mention Portia de Rossi was once a law student and the show has a musical episode (almost)?
2. Fairly Legal
Not yet showing in Australia, I managed to catch Fairly Legal while I was in the US. Sarah Shahi and Michael Trucco are great in this show. Kate (Shahi) was working as a lawyer for her father's firm and decides that she doesn't want to be a lawyer. She becomes a mediator and continues working for the firm, run by her step-mother, after her father's death. Trucco plays the District Attorney and Kate's estranged husband. Needless to say, it's a great spin on the standard legal dramedy.
3. The Defenders
While a rather short-lived show, I really enjoyed The Defenders. Based on a real Las Vegas firm, Jim Belushi has a starring role. The firm tackle rather hilarious cases that could only really happen in Vegas. It was entertaining and made me want to go practice law in Vegas, if only for the interesting cases that the team faced.
4. Law & Order
It would be amiss to make a list of great legal TV shows without including at least one conception of Law & Order. It is no secret to my friends that I am a huge fan of police procedural shows, particularly Castle. Law & Order is great in that it takes that which I love and combines it with the courtroom resolution of the crime. Perhaps it is because I am a law student, but at the end of any show where a murder is solved I wonder what actually happens at the end to the criminal. Watching Law & Order, we get our legal happy ending!
5. Boston Legal
Boston Legal was created by David E. Kelley who also created my current favourite, Ally McBeal (see above). I've watched bits and pieces of the show over the years and have enjoyed each episode I have seen. Denny Crane is hugely entertaining and I wouldn't mind being a lawyer like him... minus the 'mad cow'. The exploits of the firm are entertaining and the courtroom scenes are great, not to mention the show is absolutely hilarious!
What next?
While I have plenty more to watch, even sticking with the Law & Order franchise, I suspect my next focus will be Harry's Law. It is another of Kelley's shows and I am particularly interested in taking a look in it as I saw some of the sets being prepared for filming while I was in the United States recently. Perhaps having seen the sets being prepared and packed away may shatter the illusion and render it almost impossible for me to watch.
Hmm. I think the shenanigans that went down in Home Alone would be classified as criminal offences rather than torts :P
ReplyDeletePersonally I'm skeptical of legal TV shows. Most of them are just really boring or bad (to me. Some legal movies, on the other hand, I found good). Generally, I prefer reading or watching non-fiction stories about the law.
Harry's Law got some bad reviews (I know, and it has such a cool premise!), but I wouldn't preclude you from watching it. :P
Oh well, then again, you can bring civil actions for assault etc... Ok, never mind (my excuse: slightly hungover today).
DeleteI suppose that is all true, and now that I have studied criminal law I can see that side and agree that it would be more likely to be criminal offences. We just watched an excerpt in class and had to identify the torts. I think it was while we studied assault and battery. There were ALOT that we identified, although I hardly remember what it all was. I do know that negligence came into play as well because the robbers slipped on the icy path to start with. There was also false imprisonment I believe.
DeleteI haven't looked at Harry's Law and until now when I looked it up. I knew very little about it, other than one of the set houses that they film it in was also used for Sookie and Lorelei's houses in Gilmore Girls.
Now I really want to watch Home Alone again just to see if I can remember all the torts we found.