Law & Order: SVU Is The Worst

SVU is terrible. Are there any good lawyers on TV?

svuopeningMy wife likes Law & Order: SVU. No, she loves Law & Order: SVU. As a police procedural, sure I get it, it’s pretty good. It, however, represents the absolute worst fictional depiction of a courtroom, or frankly what it is to practice law, that exists or will ever exist. It makes Night Court look like a documentary. It gets absolutely everything wrong that the original Law & Order got right. Maybe it’s because I’m a small town lawyer, but the schmaltzy, overwrought, ridiculousness trotted out by characters from Casey Novak to the particularly creepy and inept Rafael Barba, makes me pine for the — they actually seem like attorneys I would emulate — stylings of Ben Stone, Jack McCoy and Abbie Carmichael. It’s not only the acting, it’s also as if whoever writes the courtroom scenes has neither been in a courtroom, met an attorney, nor heard of the Constitution.

In describing how much I hate SVU, I started thinking about what TV shows have done a good job of capturing what it is to be a small town lawyer. So I decided that with your assistance I would compile a list of the shows that most effectively and authentically demonstrate what it is to be a small town lawyer. The show needn’t be principally about the law or lawyers. In fact, some of the best depictions of small town lawyers may only feature said lawyer as a recurring character or in a single episode. This list will not include one particular TV show which would require something very similar to the “aversion therapy” torture scene from A Clockwork Orange to make me watch again: Ed[1]. If anyone ever makes me watch Ed again, I’m not sure what I would do or whether I’d be able to handle it. I can’t even watch the Scrubs episodes with Tom Cavanagh. My hell is pretty much populated by Ed Stevens, Rafael Barba, and the Beelzebub of the damn thing is Sonya Paxton, who left SVU in the most hilariously stupid courtroom scene ever (she arrives 45 minutes late and proceeds to play a Jackie Gleason drunk). This list is also not made for a host of other really good shows, like L.A. Law, Law and Order (not SVU, NOT SVU!!!!!), Perry Mason, Boston Legal, etc., because those obviously aren’t about being a small town lawyer. Big City lawyer shows need not apply.

Send in those suggestions to my email or tweet them at me.  Once I have compiled enough suggestions, I will post a column with the results.  Here is my submission:

The Grinder. If you haven’t seen it, you should. You will see it on Netflix, not regular TV. Why? Because once again in its infinite wisdom Fox has cancelled its smartest, funniest show. Dean Sanderson, played perfectly by Rob Lowe, is a TV lawyer who has returned to his hometown of Boise, Idaho. Imagine if Chris Traeger had the education level of SodaPop Curtis, yet fancied himself to be Sam Seaborn. That’s the Grinder. The show is aided by its ability to use Rob Lowe’s status as a TV lawyer “practicing” actual law to satirize the absurdities of television legal dramas. But for our purposes, I love Fred Savage as Rob Lowe’s real lawyer brother Stewart Sanderson and William Devane as Rob Lowe’s doting real lawyer father, Dean Sanderson, Sr. Both Devane, who is hilariously deferential to the legal opinions of the son who plays a lawyer on TV not the one who is a real lawyer, and Savage, who resents the esteem others afford his fake lawyer brother, seem to truly understand the workaday life of small town lawyers contrasted against the fanciful flourishes of Lowe’s Hollywood lawyer. Mary Elizabeth Ellis, “the Waitress” from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, is also excellent in the role of Debbie, Stewart’s wife. The show, despite spastically vacillating between seeming to understand the law and not[2], presents a funny and fairly authentic take on what it is to be a lawyer who doesn’t practice in a metropolis, doesn’t make absurd amounts of money, and doesn’t have the cheekbones and jawline of Rob Lowe. Check it out. Maybe another network or Netflix will pick it up and give it a second season. I certainly hope so. Atticus Rests.

[1] If there’s one thing I loathe more than the courtroom scenes in Law and Order:  SVU, it’s Ed.

[2] I give it a pass on most of this, because frequently it’s satirizing the inanity of most TV shows’ ineptitude in understanding the law.


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Atticus T. Lynch, Esq. is an attorney in Any Town, Any State, U.S.A. He did not attend a top ten law school. He’s a litigator who’d like to focus on Employment and Municipal Litigation, but the vicissitudes of business cause him to “focus” on anything that comes in the door. He can be reached at atticustlynch@gmail.com or on Twitter.

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