When I was an undergrad in the UW Milwaukee film program my father recommended I see four movies. He hoped they would encourage me to pursue a career in law, which I was generally opposed to, not really knowing any lawyers well and aware that just about everyone hates lawyers. I think he wanted me to see that attorneys can, at times, play a role in society more useful than that of the punch line to a joke.<\/p>\n
Similar to Hemingway\u2019s list of books<\/a> that he \u201cwould rather read again for the first time . . . than have an assured income of a million dollars a year,\u201d these titles, for me, have served as guiding lights, models of what practicing the law can be:<\/p>\n 1. Inherit the Wind<\/a> (1960) \u2013 A Hollywood dramatization of the Scopes trial that occurred in Tennessee in 1925 over the teaching of evolution in schools, you have to stomach some quaint plot exposition to get to the engaging courtroom scenes. A favorite is the defense\u2019s questioning of a young boy who had been exposed to the science teacher\u2019s course. He asks the young man: \u201cWhat Mr. Cares told you, did it hurt your baseball game any? Affect your pitching arm any?\u201d This simple line of questioning goes a long way in conveying the frivolousness of the charge. The ending is satisfactorily honest, deviating from the Hollywood formula and staying true to the real case, in that the defense loses.<\/p>\n 2. Anatomy of a Murder<\/a> (1959) \u2013 Shot on location in Upper Peninsula Michigan, starring Jimmy Stewart and with a soundtrack and cameo by Duke Ellington, this film has all the trappings of a great classic. It also conveys some of the most enduring themes of criminal law: how our intuitions about justice are called into conflict through the procedural pursuit of fact. As a system built and operated by humans, the process of criminal law comes off as fallible and imperfect. But rather than a cynical timber, the jurisprudence represented in Anatomy is somehow affirming, balancing a timeless wit and integrity.<\/p>\n 3. The Verdict<\/a> (1982) \u2013 This film begins with personal injury attorney Frank Galvin looking to settle. There is a moment when he is taking photos of his patient, bed-ridden and in a vegetative state, and the camera holds on his face as he realizes that this \u201cclient\u201d is more than a potential settlement, that she is a human being that society has failed. In the following negotiation scene with the defendants Frank is offered a significant sum of money to settle and replies with a blunt soliloquy on truth. Adapted for the screen by David Mamet, the Verdict also contains Paul Newman delivering what is arguably the best closing argument ever<\/a>.<\/p>\n 4. To Kill a Mockingbird<\/a> (1962) \u2013 Comedian Louis C.K. performed at the Riverside a couple weeks ago<\/a> and during a bit on how the act of living life is a good deal, even if you live a lousy life, C.K. cited, among other things, the joys of eating chocolate, bacon and getting the opportunity to read Harper Lee\u2019s To Kill a Mockingbird. The point is well made. It is hard to indentify a more heroic legal figure in the history of American fiction than Atticus Finch. Gregory Peck\u2019s portrayal has become so iconic that I cannot read the book without seeing his face.<\/p>\n My mother recently found some of my late father\u2019s old notebooks from when he was in high school. One of them had responses, in his teenage handwriting, to reading To Kill a Mockingbird for the first time. In it he recognizes that truth and justice are often ahead of their time, citing Atticus\u2019s overwhelmingly convincing argumentation in the courtroom along with the reality of lingering prejudice ensuring Tom Robinson\u2019s conviction. \u201cThis doesn\u2019t mean [though] that the whole trial was wasted,\u201d he writes, \u201cit was a step in the right direction, and it got people thinking about what they were doing.\u201d<\/p>\n This theme brings to mind one other film that helped tipped the scale for my decision to pursue law: Frank Capra\u2019s Mr. Smith Goes to Washington<\/a> (1939), which I watched around the same time. It is as relevant today as when it first came out. Perhaps best known for the hero\u2019s rousing invocation of a filibuster<\/a>, there is also a scene early on that always stood out to me. Smith is speaking with an old friend of his father\u2019s about their work together and recalls, \u201cDad always used to say the only causes worth fighting for were lost causes.\u201d Paine replies: \u201cYou don’t have to tell me Jeff. We were a team, the two of us, a struggling editor and a struggling lawyer. The twin champions of lost causes, they used to call us.\u201d We later learn that Paine has deviated from that noble course, and acknowledges that it cost his friend his life, defending an employee against a mining syndicate in the pages of his newspaper. The scene ends with Smith observing, \u201cI suppose, Mr. Paine, when a fellow bucks up against a big organization like that, one man by himself can’t get very far, can he?\u201d<\/p>\n Some movies help us believe in and hope for a better outcome to the failures in life (see Anatomy of a Murder and The Verdict). Other times, maybe where we need it most, they remind us that, even when we fail, not all is wasted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When I was an undergrad in the UW Milwaukee film program my father recommended I see four movies. He hoped they would encourage me to pursue a career in law, which I was generally opposed to, not really knowing any lawyers well and aware that just about everyone hates lawyers. I think he wanted me […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":144,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[37,122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-popular-culture-and-law","category-public","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/144"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18768"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18768\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}