Crime, Law Schools, Television

The Inaccuracies Grow In Week 3 Of 'How To Get Away With Murder'

The internet is vast and there are recaps aplenty, so we are focusing on the legal inaccuracies.

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Oh, “How To Get Away With Murder,” I just can’t quit you. Earlier this week, I was resolved that the legal inaccuracies were too great to continue watching, but here I am again on a Thursday night. Sure, this time I’ve had the foresight to arm myself with a bottle of whiskey I’m mixing with haterade. But the internet is vast and there are recaps aplenty, so I am focusing on the legal inaccuracies — actually that could turn into a treatise, so let’s just focus on the big whoppers.

Spoilers after the jump…

The show continues to weave its way through multiple timelines and murders. In the present, Annalise Keating’s husband, Sam, is dead, and five of her superstar students (Asher, Wes, Carter, Laurel, and Michaela) are trying to cover it up. In the two months prior timeline, there is an ongoing investigation into the murder of undergraduate Lila. Sam was Lila’s professor, maybe lover, and possible murderer. Also in the past timeline, Keating is tangling an internship at her firm and the possibility of getting out of an exam to use her students as free labor in a rotating case of the week.

In episode three, we learn that Keating’s amazing law firm that everyone is blowing off torts to work at, is really a pretty small practice. It’s run out of a house, and the only employees seem to be two associates, Bonnie and Frank. Scratch that, make that one associate, as we learn Frank isn’t really a lawyer when Keating cuts him down with the line, “Leave the lawyering to the actual lawyers.” So I guess the legal opportunity everyone’s got their panties all wet over is at firm with two lawyers and a paralegal? I know the job market is tough out there but sheesh, color me not impressed.

In the case of the week, a soccer mom, Paula, gets arrested for giving a handy in the park. Why exactly is supposed big-time lawyer Keating involved? Associate Bonnie insists this is how she builds a client base, but there’s no way a partner, an associate, a paralegal, and five interns are needed to get someone out of jail for a handy in the park. But we soon learn it was actually done for dramatic purposes as on the way out of jail, we learn Paula is really Elena and she gets arrested for a proto-Occupy Wall Street bombing that resulted in the death of a janitor. Paula/Elena winds up on trial for felony murder — so maybe they are learning something that will be tested on the bar exam! Keating determines she’ll use a mind control defense, that Paula/Elena was under the sway of the charismatic movement leader because she is way smarter than Patty Hearst’s lawyers.

The trial seems to happen the day after Paula/Elena gets arrested — yes, all TV shows speed up the amount of time actual trials take, but here it was so fast Keating didn’t even request the police file. We know this because later in the show when Keating needs a Hail Mary play, one of the star law students, Michaela, manages to sweet talk a cop into seeing the file (lying about her role in the trial). Sure, there are times when prosecutors play fast and loose with turning case files over to the defense, but if that were what we were meant to believe, why does a random cop give Michaela the file with barely a moment’s hesitation? The prep work Keating & Co. has done on this case just comes off as shoddy.

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Meanwhile, over in the ongoing investigation of Lila’s murder, we learn that apparently Wes has not yet taken professional ethics. Because, wow, he breaks a few rules. Superstar quarterback Griffin O’Conner and Wes’s neighbor Rebecca have been arrested for Lila’s murder. The university wants Keating to get their quarterback off (of the charges, not sexually, because in this show it could mean either). When Wes along with the entirety of Keating’s firm interviews Griffin to determine if Keating will take the case, we learn Griffin believes Wes’s buddy Rebecca is solely responsible for the murder of Lila. This is enough to have Wes throwing all semblance of ethics to the wind. Hmm . . . maybe this whole murder-and-cover-up-of-Professor-Keating’s-husband thing shouldn’t be that much of a shock.

Wes proceeds to forge a public defender’s ID then scream to Rebecca as he is getting hauled out of the jail the Griffin is planning on pinning the murder on Rebecca. And though it seems like Keating would be mad about this behavior, she is apparently enamoured of mavericks, because the net result of these antics is Keating decides not to take Griffin on as a client and instead decides to represent Rebecca. So Wes gets what he wants, and is rewarded as the top student who now has the ability to get out of an exam. Yay? I guess.

Based on the previews, next week seems to be focused more on the overarching plot of Lila’s murder. One would assume the writers would take more time crafting that storyline as it is an arc for the whole season. Maybe that means the inaccuracies will be fewer next week . . . maybe.

Alex Rich is a T14 grad and Biglaw refugee who has worked as a contract attorney for the last 7 years… and counting. If you have a story about the underbelly of the legal world known as contract work, email Alex at [email protected] and be sure to follow Alex on Twitter @AlexRichEsq

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