Television

Standard Of Review: Proposing Some New Great Legal TV Shows

Lately, there has been a dearth of truly great legal television dramas. We've got some great ideas. Would you watch any of them?

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We live in the era of too much great television. One minute, my friends are chastising me for watching too much, and in the next minute, they are haranguing me for not having seen their favorite show (I am sorry I haven’t watched Black Mirror yet — I am busy!). But despite this great epoch for television, there has been a dearth of truly great legal television dramas.

When I say a “great” legal television drama, I mean a serialized or mostly serialized drama, preferably on cable or streaming services, containing great acting, directing, and writing. (I was going to use the acronym “GLTD” for purposes of this column, but then I realized that was perilously similar to “GTL” from Jersey Shore). The only current show that possibly fits that bill is The Good Wife (albeit on a network, not cable), but that show is currently in its sixth season. It is time for some new blood.

Surely, a lot of lawyering is extremely boring; I do not think anyone would want to watch a television show depicting a lawyer meticulously ensuring that every id. in a brief has an italicized period (though that would probably have been a more riveting show than the vast majority of Showtime’s The Affair). But there are a lot of areas of the law that would be perfect subjects of a great television show. In order to facilitate this process, below I suggest a few completely made-up ideas about potentially great shows about the world of lawyers.

Law School: The film The Paper Chase was released in 1973, and the eponymous television show ended in 1986. Subsequent depictions of law school have either been comedic (Legally Blonde) or unrealistic (How to Get Away With Murder). It is time to update the “law school story” for the twenty-first century.

Normally I dislike remakes, but The Paper Chase is an excellent title with great characters. Let’s keep its fundamental structure. But instead of a male lead as main character James Hart, let’s cast a female as Jane Hart. I vote for Brie Larson, who has showed her dramatic and comedic chops in Short Term 12 and 21 Jump Street (and is probably champing at the bit to be cast in something without the numerals 1 and 2 in the title).

In a perfect world, I would cast either Andre Braugher or J.K. Simmons as the domineering Professor Kingsfield. But Braugher is busy on Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and Simmons just played a very similar role in Whiplash (my pick for best the best film in 2014), albeit as a music professor. Instead, let’s hire Tracy Letts, who, as perpetually exasperated CIA Chief Andrew Lockhart, was one of the few bright spots during the last two seasons of Homeland. I am confident that Letts would play a sufficiently menacing Kingsfield.

Miniseries About a Failing Law Firm: Readers of this website are likely well aware that in 2012, Dewey & LeBoeuf went bankrupt in the largest law firm bankruptcy in United States history. The Dewey bankruptcy included a plethora of colorful central and background characters, including a Russian spy, a mobster, and a guy who likely went tanning about as often as “Meathead Rob Lowe” from the DirecTV commercials. I think the final days of a fictionalized titanic law firm would be great television. Although there is probably not enough story to warrant multiple seasons, I think it would work as a miniseries, which are back in vogue due to the success of shows like Top of the Lake and The Honourable Woman. I imagine that this show would tonally match the excellent and underrated 2011 film Margin Call.

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The Honourable Woman was great, so let’s hire its showrunner Hugo Blick and actors Maggie Gyllenhaal (and allow her to use her natural American accent) and Stephen Rea. Rea can play the chairman of the failing firm, who has cooked the firm’s books with the aid of wunderkind financial whiz (played by Gaius Charles, better known as Smash Williams from Friday Night Lights). Gyllenhaal will play the junior partner who discovers the firm’s fraud and has a crisis about whether to assuage her conscience and contact the prosecutors or to save everyone’s jobs by keeping quiet.

Anthology Series Depicting One Legal Case Per Season: True Detective proved that the public has an appetite for an anthology television show in which a case gets solved over the course of an entire season. But I am tired of detective stories; let’s instead focus on lawyers (who probably drink only slightly less Lone Star beer than Rust Cohle did on True Detective). Basically, this show would be Damages, but better.

For the first season, I vote to cast Scott Porter (best known for his excellent performance as Jason Street in Friday Night Lights) as a young, intrepid attorney tasked with defending an evil financial institution accused of committing massive financial fraud. Let’s hire Michael Raymond-James (one of the stars of the brilliant-but-cancelled 2010 show Terriers) as the trader accused of masterminding the fraud.

Small-Time Law: Not every show has to have extremely high stakes. I propose a show about a small-time lawyer and the motley crew of bizarre criminals and degenerates that he has to interact with on a daily basis. Oh wait — that show actually exists, as AMC is premiering Breaking Bad spinoff Better Call Saul in early February. Mark your calendars, as I will definitely be reviewing Better Call Saul next month.

Old Timey Lawyers: As evidenced by the popularity of shows like Downton Abbey, many Americans have become anglophiles who love period pieces. Let’s capitalize on this trend and create a television show about old-timey English lawyers as they speak in barely recognizable English and politick and debate the great legal issues of the day. And if that does not turn out to be the most riveting show in the history of mankind, we can always course-correct and create a show about…

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Harry Graff is a litigation associate at a firm, but he spends days wishing that he was writing about film, television, literature, and pop culture instead of writing briefs. If there is a law-related movie, television show, book, or any other form of media that you would like Harry Graff to discuss, he can be reached at harrygraff19@gmail.com. Be sure to follow Harry Graff on Twitter at @harrygraff19.

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