Standard Of Review: How To Make Daredevil A Better Legal Show

Daredevil is unquestionably a great superhero show, but it could be a better legal show.

Daredevil is unquestionably a great superhero show. It expertly wrestles with what it means to be “good” and “evil,” especially because the show’s protagonist Matt Murdock/Daredevil (Charlie Cox) and antagonist Wilson Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio) have the same goal – to clean up Hell’s Kitchen. Cox and D’Onofrio are giving terrific performances, and the show contains some of the most well-choreographed fight scenes that I have ever seen.

Daredevil is unquestionably not a great legal show. Matt’s day job is as a crusading lawyer, and two of the show’s main characters, Foggy Nelson (Elden Henson) and Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll), work at Matt’s tiny, fledgling law firm, Nelson & Murdock. Nevertheless, Daredevil does not give these legal scenes the same attention and care that it gives to the superhero ones. Focusing on the seventh through tenth episodes, I will explain how Daredevil can be a better legal show (warning: this discussion contains spoilers) .

First, Matt needs put his money where his mouth is and do some actual legal work. In the seventh episode (“Stick”), Matt’s mentor, coincidentally named Stick (Scott Glenn, who between this and The Leftovers has had a very solid year in small, supporting guest turns) betrays Matt and kills a young boy (who Stick believes is a weapon) over Matt’s strong objection. Matt, tired of vigilante justice, vows to fight Fisk using the “legal system.” Matt repeats this refrain several times over the course of these episodes. But, unfortunately, the audience barely sees Matt, Foggy, and Karen using the “legal system” at all. For example, in one episode, Matt conducts some research on Fisk’s “subsidiaries” that allows him to control Hell’s Kitchen, but this scene is relatively perfunctory; we never see the results of Matt’s research or whether it leads to anything.

Second, Daredevil wastes the fact that Matt and Foggy are in active litigation with Fisk. Nelson & Murdock represents Elena Cardenas (Judith Delgado), an elderly woman being constructively evicted from her apartment by a slumlord working for Fisk. On an emotional level, this storyline is extremely powerful. Foggy and Karen become extremely close with Cardenas (who is essentially Nelson & Murdock’s only client), and all the protagonists are devastated when Fisk hires a junkie to kill Cardenas in order to draw Matt out of hiding.

But the show misses the boat when it comes to the legal aspects of Cardenas’s story. Fisk, after meeting Matt at an art gallery, once mentions the fact that they are adverse to each other. But the show otherwise mostly eschews any depiction of the litigation. We don’t know what Matt and Foggy are doing to further the case, and why the litigation is so fruitless. At one point, Foggy suggests that he and Matt should attempt to depose Fisk, but they do not follow through with this plan. This is disappointing because Fisk is perhaps the most anxious supervillain I have ever seen (and mimicking Fisk’s cadence has become my new favorite activity after a couple of beers), and it would be immensely entertaining to watch him squirm out of Matt and Foggy’s questions.

Third, the show’s attempt to provide a more meaningful explanation as to why Matt and Foggy started their own law firm after rejecting a job at the megafirm Landman & Zack could have be handled more gracefully. The tenth episode (“Nelson v. Murdock”) is largely a two-hander between Matt and Foggy, depicting the aftermath of Foggy’s discovery that Matt is Daredevil. The episode is intercut with flashbacks, portraying the development of Matt and Foggy’s relationship from meeting on the first day of law school to making the fateful decision to quit Landman & Zack.

These scenes are very unrealistic. Matt and Foggy both graduated towards the top of their class at Columbia, and yet, they were merely “interns” at Landman & Zack, working in a broom closet and hoping for full-time employment (I had mistakenly believed that they were summer associates). Even in the post-2008 economy, Matt and Foggy would certainly be able to obtain full-time law firm jobs, either at Landman & Zack or elsewhere. (However, I suppose that it is possible that the events of the first Avengersfilm, which have been obliquely referenced a few times on Daredevil, were a watershed moment for the legal industry. In that film, much of the midtown Manhattan area surrounding Grand Central was destroyed, presumably including many top law firms. It is therefore possible that this glut of newly unemployed lawyers upset the market so that even top law students like Matt and Foggy could not find full-time work. Given the rate at which Marvel is releasing movies and television shows these days, I expect a film depicting the effect of these superheroic events on the legal profession by 2017 at the latest.)

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The tipping point for Matt and Foggy’s career at Landman & Zack is a meeting in which the two then-interns sit with a never-ending cavalcade of Landman & Zack attorneys on one side of a conference table as a senior partner falsely accuses a mass-tort plaintiff of stealing Landman & Zack’s client’s trade secrets in order to pressure the plaintiff into dropping the case. Matt, who can hear the plaintiff’s heartbeat, knows that the senior partner’s accusation is specious, causing Matt to doubt his desire to work there. On one hand, I enjoyed this scene because I have also attended numerous meetings so filled with lawyers that they are about two lawyers away from re-enacting the classic stateroom scene in the Marx Brothers film A Night at the Opera. Moreover, many lawyers will surely sympathize with Matt’s reluctance to represent evil, faceless corporations that bully the little guy. But on the other hand, this scene depicts Landman & Zack as one-dimensionally immoral, making up a completely false lie to intimidate an adversary. I wish that Matt decided to leave Landman & Zack for a more nuanced reason than seeing the senior partner act in such a reprehensible manner.

But there is still hope. “Nelson v. Murdock” contains a short but terrific flashback scene depicting Matt and Foggy, drunk while walking through the Columbia campus. Even before they attempt to work at Landman & Zack, Foggy excitingly mentions the possibility of starting “Murdock & Nelson,” but Matt immediately corrects him and states that “Nelson & Murdock” sounds better. This scene is very brief, but it effectively uses the show’s legal elements as a microcosm of Foggy and Matt’s relationship. It is very apparent that Foggy – despite being the more outgoing of the pair – has an inferiority complex when it comes to Matt, who is smarter, better looking, and more successful in his romantic pursuits. Of course Foggy would therefore suggest that Matt’s name should come first. And Matt is quick to throw a bone to (seemingly) his only friend and allow “Murdock” to be listed second. I hope that next season makes more use of the show’s legal elements in this sort of way.

I recognize that this column is extremely nitpicky, but I believe that improving the show’s legal elements could take Daredevil from a very good show to a great show in its second season (Netflix picked up Daredevil for a second season on April 21, albeit without showrunner Steven S. DeKnight). I am going to write about something other than Daredevil next week (everyone will surely wait with bated breath to find out), and I will review the final three episodes of Daredevil in two weeks. And in the interim, I expect that Marvel will have scheduled at least five more movies and four more television shows.


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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