Standard Of Review: In 2015, Legal Entertainment Succeeded When It Stopped Being Glitzy And Started Getting Real

Culture columnist Harry Graff looks back on the year that was in law-related television, books, and movies.

In my very first column for Above the Law, I outlined one of the primary reasons that I do not enjoy most legal entertainment – the lack of realism. As an attorney, I detest watching or reading works that portray the law as glitzy and glamorous and pretend that a legal case can be solved in an hour. That notion has been reinforced over the course of 2015, as I have reviewed numerous legal movies, television shows, and books. There is a clear and pronounced dichotomy in legal entertainment between those works that actually make some attempt to be accurate and those works that throw realism out the window.

Most legal television shows – particularly because of their short run-times – fall into the latter category. Over the course of the year, even though I believe I did my best work reviewing shows that I actually like, I nevertheless received the most feedback for Suits, a legal show that is fast-paced, easily digestible, and frighteningly unrealistic in numerous ways (though, for me, even though it is a small detail, the aspect of Suits that annoys me the most is the tiny computers that are used at one of the most prominent law firms in New York).

Trust me, I try very hard to like Suits. I recognize that my taste does not always square with the general public’s, and accordingly, I try to judge works of entertainment based on what they aspire to be. Suits bills itself as a fun show, and I (sometimes) like fun! Heck, I even wrote an entire column praising the show’s villainous Jack Soloff and his three-piece suits. Despite this, Suits often suffered because it took itself way too seriously. I always felt like watching the breezy Suits was a chore and watching deeper, more serious shows (even depressing ones like The Leftovers) was a treat.

This fall saw the return of How To Get Away With Murder, which tries in theory to be a quality show – mostly because star Viola Davis is an excellent actor who nails every scene she is given – but more often veers closer to a soap opera. Moreover, Murder’s lack of realism makes Suits and its small computers look like a Ken Burns documentary in comparison. For example, Murder insists on continuing the baffling plot point that five of of the top 1Ls at a prestigious law school essentially ignore all their other classes and instead work almost full-time for Annalise, committing numerous crimes and ethical violations in the process. And when the show does deign to depict the rare times the characters actually attend law school, those scenes are frighteningly absurd.

Even Daredevil, which I enjoyed as a superhero show, failed as a legal drama. Main character Matt Murdock and supporting character Foggy Nelson are lawyers by day who continually vow to fight evil in Hell’s Kitchen through the justice system. However, they seem to only throw out legal buzzwords but never actually do any legal work. For example, at one point, they discuss potentially taking the deposition of antagonist Wilson Fisk, but never actually do so. Daredevil has good intentions as a legal show but could benefit from at least one actual lawyer on the writing staff.

I would have concluded that law and television should stay 500 yards from each other at all times if it wasn’t for Better Call Saul. A prequel to Breaking Bad (my favorite television show of all time), Better Call Saul is everything I have ever hoped for in a legal television show. It is heavily serialized, contains interesting characters that act like real people and actually develop, and is gorgeously shot in New Mexico. For example, instead of portraying Saul as a goof, the show treats him seriously; the first season depicts him as a well-intentioned attorney who is unable to shake his criminal past and thus descends into sleaze. The show also makes great use of its supporting characters, particularly Kim Wexler, Saul’s former lover and an associate at HHM, the biggest firm in Albuquerque. Thanks to Rhea Seehorn’s brilliant portrayal, Kim actually acts like a real associate at a firm, such as modulating her voice and attitude when she speaks to one of the firm’s partners.

Even though Better Call Saul lives in the heightened reality of Breaking Bad, the show still feels real in a way that Suits or How To Get Away With Murder does not. Co-showrunner Vince Gilligan has stated in interviews that he did his diligence, hanging out at courthouses and seeing what the practice of law is really like. As a result, instead of portraying law as glitzy, glamorous, and solvable in an hour, Better Call Saul acknowledges the monotony and frustration that attorneys feel on a daily basis. By the time the season ended in April, I was heartened about the future of legal entertainment.

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I was also heartened by many of the books I reviewed over the course of 2015, all of which were written by attorneys. For example, Lindsay Cameron’s novel BIGLAW (affiliate link) strikes a dagger into the narrative of law as a glamorous profession. Instead, her protagonist Mackenzie Corbett slaves away at her desk, conducting due diligence at all hours of the night. In perhaps the book’s darkest scene (and relevant given the time of year), Mackenzie is forced to leave her family during the holidays in order to find a fax machine in her hometown and fax a series of documents, one by one, to a partner vacationing in Mexico. The scene works as dark comedy because virtually every reader who has worked at a firm could conceive of the same thing happening to them.

While Hollywood decided that it had enough of legal films in 2015 (a problem I wrote about a few months ago), some films that were not ostensibly about law nevertheless portrayed the law in an accurate manner. For example, in Spotlight, a film I reviewed last week, one of the most important secondary characters is Mitchell Garabedian (Stanley Tucci), a solo practitioner who has filed numerous lawsuits against the Catholic Church. I did not have room to mention this in my column, but Garabedian’s office set actually looks like a real office, as it was small, cramped, and was overflowing with stacks of papers.

Accordingly, as we enter 2016, my advice to those making legal entertainment is to spend extra time thinking about realism. Even little details such as the decor of someone’s office can go a long way. And, as an audience, let’s be more selective. Let’s make sure not to recommend shows where, say, associates at New York’s most prestigious law firm work on netbooks in their offices.


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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