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Society is officially out of ideas and that means we’re inundated with reboots and reimaginings of classics. The Andy Griffith lawyer classic, Matlock, which ran from 1986-1995, is the most recent to get a facelift for the 20s.
The new Matlock, which stars Kathy Bates as Maddy Matlock, is doing well for CBS. The show exists in a post-Matlock world, meaning it explicitly references the 80s iteration as it makes societal commentary about aging, sexism, and the opioid crisis. Another big change is the major plot twist that comes at the conclusion of the pilot episode.
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For the majority of the episode Bates plays a down-on-her-luck, unassuming, low key brilliant lawyer that chit-chats her way into success during a high profile lawsuit. Cute, but entirely what you’d expect from a Matlock reboot. But then comes the twist.
SPOILERS BELOW
At the end of the premiere episode it’s revealed that Maddy Matlock is a fake name, and Kathy Bates is a wildly successful attorney that faked her identity to get hired at a big firm. She expositions that one of the three partners that are now her bosses at the firm hid documents on behalf of a pharmaceutical company client. The character we know as Matlock believes the hidden documents could have removed opioids from the market, potentially saving her daughter that died of an overdose. She lied her way into a job at the firm at the top of the episode to expose whichever lawyer is responsible.
It’s an okay twist for a CBS show, as long as you know exactly nothing about legal ethics.
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“Matlock” used a fake identity to get the job, and used subterfuge to have reference requests routed to family members. That’s not something bar licensing authorities tend to look favorably upon — something about honesty and integrity being foundations of the profession.
Then there’s the whole revenge plot, which, obviously as only the pilot has aired we don’t know much about yet, but seems designed to expose various client confidences. Blowing up attorney/client privilege also isn’t encouraged. If “Matlock” has evidence of wrongdoing by members of the firm, there are authorities that it should be reported to without ignoring professional responsibility rules.
Matlock might be an okay show to watch with your parents when visiting them over the holidays, but it’s a terrible model for how attorneys should act.
Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter @Kathryn1 or Mastodon @Kathryn1@mastodon.social.