What tv series or good movies can you recommend which will help me as a law student and aspiring lawyer?

ashes1184

I think the obvious answer here is Law & Order, the original series. Also, Boston Legal on a more theatrical side, but still the law. You can also tune into Judge Judy!

Bonzo

Dumb & Dumber ?? :-)

open4one

You're not going to learn anything about Law from television or movies. In fact, you're probably not going to learn much about anything from a medium whose purpose is "entertainment".

If they tried to do a "reality show" about lawyers, the pilot would fail because it would be too dull. Unlike what's shown on television, lawyers spend a great deal of time reading and writing, and on "hold" trying to get information over the phone. If you pay attention to "Law and Order", you might see the occassional reference to a staffer being in the office all night reading cases, or notice them leaving the office at 9pm, and see a hint that this is going on, but there's nothing interesting about watching someone read for four hours. Good lawyers spend far more time reading, writing, and preparing than they ever spend in trials. Judges have low tolerance for lawyers that aren't prepared.

The only way you could develop anything useful as a lawyer from watching movies would be if you counted the number of times the word "is" was used in the dialogue. It would be a totally pointless exercise, you'd completely miss the plot of the movie, it would be boring beyond belief, and no one would really care if your count was accurate or not. The practice of Law is often just like that.

CatLaw

Agree with a few of the posts, but imho there just is nothing in the media that really captures the job of being a lawyer. Many of the TV shows about lawyers make those in our profession look sleazy and perpetuate a negative public image of a lawyer as rich, smart mouth, selfish and totally ignorant of ethics. Law & Order is accurate for what they do show, BUT they fail to show how long things take to get done, how frustrating continuances can be, how much work is really involved in getting a case to trial, or how much actual time a lawyer puts into the case.

Once you begin working as a lawyer you will be annoyed every time a client says things like "why is my case taking so long. On Law & Order they finish a murder case in an hour." I have had clients who want to discuss what was on tv and why their case doesn't flow as smooth. I have also had clients who end up not paying their bill and make comments about how they "know" that lawyers are paid well, after all the "watch the tv shows about lawyers". For many clients the hardest thing to do is to convince them that what goes on in the TV trials is not what will happen in their case.

quamquamsidere

<sigh> None. Trust me. Unless you watch "A Civil Action"-- pay close attention to the fact that Schlictmann LOST EVERYTHING working on that case, and ended up having to settle for a pittance, compared to what the damages SHOULD have been. Now that's more like real world law.

(Read the book instead of watching the movie, by the way... it gives you a SLIGHTLY better idea of what you're getting into-- the long hours, the months and months of painstaking research, living surrounded by boxes and boxes of musty paper, the irritating adversarialism of opposing counsel... they had to condense several years of work into a couple of hours of movie time, and, as someone else noted, it's just not very interesting to watch people slog through a box of documents.)

Changrit T

I agree with dump and dumpers

you can buy it at amazon . link is below

http://www.amazon.com/gp/search?ie=UTF8&keywords=jim%20carrey%20dumber&tag=bigdiscountsa-20&index=blended&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325

prospectivelawyer

Paper Chase would be the place to start. It might not give an accurate view of your future career, but it's a great motvator

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