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Citation: 30 U.S.F. L. Rev. 1131 1995-1996
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Copyright Information
When Lawyers Were Heroes
By
MICHAEL
AsIMow*
FILMMAKERS HAVE ALWAYS been fascinated by courtroom stories.'
1, The reasons are obvious. Courtroom plots automatically generate confrontation and conflict-attorney vs. witness, attorney vs. opposing counsel,
attorney vs. judge, attorney vs. client-and trial movies have a built-in suspense factor. When the judge says, "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, have
you reached a verdict?" we never know whether this mysterious group of
twelve strangers will send the defendants to the chair or let them walk out
of the courtroom to freedom.
* This enduringly popular format allows filmmakers to present controversial legal and social issues in a sugarcoated package. The ethical dilemmas presented by war crime prosecutions are vividly dramatized by
Judgment at Nuremberg2 and Prisoners of the Sun.3 The eternal conflict of
science and religion comes to life in Inherit the Wind.4 The issue of transracial adoption becomes heartrending drama in Losing Isaiah.5 Nuts6 raises
the issue of whether a person has the right to be punished for committing a
crime rather than be treated for mental illness. Doctors and lawyers debate
7
whether a quadriplegic has the right to die in Whose Life Is It Anyway?
The problem of command influence in military justice is probed in numerous films such as Breaker Morant8 and Paths of Glory.9 And capital punishment has been the subject of many gripping trial films. The brutality of
*
Professor of Law, UCLA Law School. LL.B., University of California, Berkeley, 1964;
B.S., UCLA, 1961.
1. This Essay is based on material in PAUL BERGMAN & MICHAEL AsiMow, REEL-JUSTICE:
THE COURTROOM GOES TO THE MOVIES (1996). Our book Reel Justice rates, summarizes, and
analyzes 70 courtroom pictures, and an appendix briefly summarizes about 40 more. We make no
claim that we have exhausted the field. For an invaluable guide to the use of courtroom movies in
teaching professional responsibility, see ROGER C. CRAMTON, AUDIOVISUAL MATERIALS ON PRO-
(1987).
JUDGMENT AT NUREMBERG (United Artists 1961).
FESSIONAL RESPONSIBILITY
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
PRISONERS OF THE SUN (Village Roadshow Pictures 1990).
INHERIT THE WIND (United Artists 1960).
(Paramount 1995).
NUTS (Warner Brothers 1987).
WHOSE LIFE Is IT ANYWAY? (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer 1981).
BREAKER MORANT (South Australian Film Corp. 1980).
PATHS OF GLORY (United Artists 1957).
LOSING ISAIAH
UNIVERSITY OF SAN FRANCISCO LAW REVIEW
[Vol. 30
the gas chamber is unforgettably rendered in I Want to Live' 0 and the risk
that an innocent person will be put to death is treated in Ten Rillington
3
Place,I The Thin Blue Line,' 2 and Let Him Have It.1
I am particularly interested in the rich gallery of lawyer portraits
presented in the trial film genre. These films tend to mirror popular culture,
and the power of the movies tends to reinforce that culture. Therefore, how
the movies portray what lawyers do and why they do it is fascinating social
history.
In older trial movies, lawyers were often described in glowing terms.
5
Although there were a few scoundrels' 4 or mouthpieces for the mob,' most
film attorneys seemed oblivious to the need to make a living. Untroubled
by ethical conflicts,' 6 they fought hard but fair in court. We find them
springing to the defense of the downtrodden,' 7 battling for civil liberties, 18
or single-handedly preventing injustice.' 9 These stories reflect the popular
culture of the time in which attorneys were widely respected. Attorneys
were never all that wonderful, but no doubt they loved, to watch themselves
pictured as heroes up on the screen. And surely this benign treatment in
film enhanced the image of lawyers in the public's mind.
10. 1 WANT TO LIVE (United Artists 1958).
1I. TEN RILLINGTON PLACE (Columbia 1971).
12. THE THIN BLUE LINE (BFI 1988).
13. LET HIM HAVE IT (First Independent 1991). All four of these films are based on true
stories.
14. A good example is the firm of Cedar, Cedar, Cedar & Budington in MR. DEEDS GOES TO
TOWN (Columbia 1936). These attorneys have looted a decedent's estate to the tune of half a
million bucks.
15. See, e.g., MARKED WOMAN (Warner Brothers 1937).
16. One notable exception is THE LETTER (Warner Brothers 1940). In this film, an attorney
purchases, then suppresses, a critical item of evidence. But he does so out of compassion for his
friend and client. Another is the fascinating picture TRIAL (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer 1955), in
which one attorney tries to sacrifice his client for a political cause but a second lawyer manages to
thwart the evil scheme.
17. In KNOCK ON ANY DOOR (Columbia 1949), an attorney, against his better judgment,
goes to bat one last time for his long-time client Pretty Boy Romano in a murder case. In YOUNG
MR. LINCOLN (Twentieth Century Fox 1939), Lincoln volunteers to defend a couple of hicks who
can't pay anything, who are accused of murder, and who figure to get lynched by nightfall.
18. The classic example is INHERIT THE WIND (United Artists 1960), in which Clarence
Darrow drags himself to Tennessee to defend a high school teacher accused of teaching evolution
in the Scopes Monkey Trial. In a lighter vein, Amanda Bonner, in ADAM'S RIB (Metro-GoldwynMayer 1949), risks her marriage by defending a woman accused of attempted murder in order to
vindicate the principle that women as well as men can shoot their partners' paramours.
19. A notable example is BOOMERANG (Twentieth Century Fox 1947), in which a prosecutor
refuses to give in to public pressure and instead proves the defendant innocent. In COMPULSION
(Twentieth Century Fox 1959), Clarence Darrow eloquently pleads for the lives of thrill-killers
Leopold and Loeb. In THE YOUNG PHILADELPHIANS (Warner Brothers 1959), a tax lawyer jeopardizes his law firm job and social standing to represent an old friend charged with murder.
Summer 1996]
ONE MOVIE NO LAWYER SHOULD MISS
Contemporary movies sometimes present attorneys in the traditional
heroic style. 20 But more often, lawyers today are presented in courtroom
movies as money-hungry, 2' boozed-out, 22 burned-out, 23 incompetent, 24 unethical sleazebags. 25 Just as the old movies unrealistically painted lawyers
in glowing terms, the current ones are too negative. Yet they accurately
reflect and no doubt reinforce the popular culture in which attorneys have
about the same public approval rating as the criminals they represent.
Of course, I love the old movies in which lawyers were heroes. These
films portray our profession as we wish it really was and as it sometimes,
though rarely, really is. After all, there have always been quietly heroic
lawyers, and there are plenty of them still practicing today. Why shouldn't
they get into the movies along with the legal lowlifes?
We find unsung heroes in law offices everywhere working compe-
tently for ordinary clients paying modest fees. We see numerous lawyers
serving pro bono in public interest cases or volunteering in clinics. We find
them doing underpaid jobs as public defenders, prosecutors, or legal service
lawyers. They are toiling away for the government, protecting the environ20. For example, a tenacious attorney frees the Guildford Four in IN THE NAME OF THE
FATHER (Universal 1993). In MURDER IN THE FIRST (Warner Brothers 1994), an inexperienced
but enthusiastic public defender mounts an all-out attack on prison conditions at Alcatraz. In
REVERSAL OF FORTUNE (Warner Brothers 1990), Alan Dershowitz takes on Claus Von Bulow's
appeal but only to raise money for his pro bono death penalty practice.
21.
Ed Concannon, the defense attorney in THE VERDICT (Twentieth Century Fox 1982),
pads the client's bill by massively overstaffing the case, plants a sexual spy in the opposition's
camp, and buys off the plaintiff's expert witness.
22. Frank Galvin, plaintiffs attorney in The Verdict, is the prototypical alcoholic attorney.
Galvin makes his living by showing up at the funerals of complete strangers, pretending to be an
intimate friend of the deceased, and passing out his card to the bereaved.
23. Public defender Kathleen Riley in SUSPECT (Columbia 1987) and several of the criminal
defense lawyers in AND JUSTICE FOR ALL (Columbia 1979) are prime examples of the burnout
syndrome.
24.
In PHILADELPHIA (TriStar 1992), Belinda Conine makes a horrible tactical blunder in
representing a law firm charged with discriminating against an associate afflicted with AIDS. In
The Verdict, Frank Galvin ignores a big personal injury case until two weeks before trial, thus
leaving him no time for discovery. Although MY CoUsIN VINNY (Twentieth Century Fox 1992) is
hilariously funny, the reality is that an inexperienced and totally incompetent attorney is handling
a capital case.
25.
Examples are legion. In PRESUMED INNOCENT (Warner Brothers 1990), nearly every-
body in the courtroom was involved in a bribery incident. The deceased was a prosecutor diligently sleeping her way to the top in the D.A.'s office. In THE STAR CHAMBER (Twentieth
Century Fox 1985), judges fed up with crooks getting off on technicalities hire killers to do in the
crooks. CLASS ACTION (Twentieth Century Fox 1990) presents a catalogue of ethical catastrophes, including concealment of evidence during discovery and a defense attorney switching sides
during the trial. The portrayal of female trial lawyers in modern courtroom films is particularly
vicious, with Maggie Ward's unethical behavior in Class Action only one of numerous stereotypical examples. See BERGMAN & AsIMow, supra note 1, at 90-93.
UNIVERSITY OF SAN FRANCISCO LAW REVIEW
[Vol. 30
ment, collecting taxes, or enforcing worker safety laws. 26 Pictures that focus on this kind of lawyer teach the public that there is a different model of
professional conduct than the one they hear about in lawyer jokes. And
such films teach lawyers that their profession entails something besides
money-grubbing. Lawyers can, and do, go to the limit for their clients,
often without any chance of profit. It's a story that deserves to be told.
And that brings me to my all-time favorite trial film, To Kill a,
27
Mockingbird.
I.
The Story of To Kill a Mockingbird
For readers who haven't seen this film (or who read Harper Lee's
book 28 in junior high school but have forgotten the details), let me summarize the story. 29 It is told through the eyes of two children, Jem and Scout,
who live in Maycomb, Alabama, during the Depression. In a neighboring
house lives a mysterious and terrifying recluse, Boo Radley. A local judge
appoints their father, Atticus Finch, to represent Tom Robinson, a black
man accused of beating and raping Mayella Ewell, a young white woman.
Without hesitation, Atticus takes on this exceptionally unpopular client, but
almost immediately, he must face a lynch mob bent on snatching Robinson
from the jail and stringing him up. Atticus manages this feat with the
timely assistance of his kids.
At the trial, Mayella testifies that she invited Tom into the house to do
chores and he attacked her. Her father is a racist redneck named Bob Ewell.
Ewell testifies that he came home, found Robinson on top of his daughter,
and chased him from the house. Nobody called a doctor. Atticus' cross26. Government lawyers unjustly suffer the twin stigmas of being attorneys and bureaucrats.
27. To KILL A MOCKINGBIRD (Universal-International 1962). To Kill a Mockingbird was,
produced by Alan J. Pakula and distributed by Universal. The screenplay was written by Horton,
Foote based on the novel by Harper Lee. Robert Mulligan directed. The film features Gregory,
Peck as Atticus Finch, Mary Badham as Scout, Philip Alford as Jem, Brock Peters as Tom Robinson, Robert Duvall as Boo Radley, Collin Wilcox as Mayella Ewell, and James Anderson as Bob
Ewell.
28. HARPER LEE, To KILL A MOCKINGBIRD (1960). Harper Lee's only book, To Kill a
Mockingbird, was published in 1960 and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1961. This wonderful literary
work has sold tens of millions of copies and is still in print. In 1994, it was celebrated in Symiposium: To Kill a Mockingbird, 45 ALA. L. REv. 389 (1994).
29. The Maycomb courtroom in To Kill a Mockingbird is an almost perfect copy of one in
Monroeville, Alabama, where author Harper Lee was raised. Scout is certainly the author herself
and Atticus Finch is modeled on her father, A.C. Lee, a lawyer in Monroeville. Jem and Scout's
peculiar friend Dill is based on author Truman Capote, who was a neighbor and lifelong friend of
Harper Lee. Harper Lee attended law school at the University of Alabama but did not graduate.
The story is fictional, although Mr. Lee once represented two blacks who killed a merchant 'and
were hanged in the Monroeville jail. See Timothy Hoff, Influences on Harper Lee: An Introduction to the Symposium, 45 ALA. L. REv. 389, 392-96 (1994).
Summer 1996)
ONE MOVIE NO LAWYER SHOULD MISS
examination of both witnesses leaves little doubt that they are lying through
their remaining teeth.
I Robinson testifies that Mayella had invited him in to do chores many
times and that he did them for nothing because he felt sorry for her (not the
smartest thing to say to an all-white Southern jury). Robinson also testifies
that on the critical day, Mayella grabbed and kissed him. Her father came
home and saw it happen. Atticus then shows that Mayella's facial injuries
were on the right side; her father Bob was left handed. Robinson could
only use his right hand; his left arm was useless.
Atticus' closing argument is masterful. He points out that the trial was
about a few simple ideas: that whites tell the truth and blacks lie, and that
white men must protect their women from black men. He observes that
Mayella broke the code by kissing and trying to seduce a black man. Nevertheless, the jury convicts Robinson. Shortly thereafter, Robinson tries to
flee and is killed by a deputy. When Atticus goes to tell the news to Robinson's family, Bob Ewell shows up and spits in his face.
In a stunning conclusion, Ewell attacks the children as they walk home
from a school pageant. The mysterious Boo materializes and kills Ewell.
The sheriff tries to atone for his mistaken belief in the Ewells' false story,
which led to Robinson's prosecution and death. He declares that Ewell fell
on his own knife, so that the pathetic Boo 30 would be spared any further
torment. At first Atticus demurs, but then he accepts this expedient
strategy.
IL
The Lawyer as Hero in To Kill a Mockingbird
Atticus Finch could not have welcomed the assignment to defend
Robinson, yet he accepted it without hesitation. The task required him to
challenge the comfortable myths of rural southern life. At a minimum, this
made him and his children highly unpopular. In fact, it placed his family in
mortal danger. To his children, Atticus explains that if he refused the assignment, he could never hold up his head up in town again. This simple
explanation says it all.
Not long before Robinson's trial, in the famous case of the Scottsboro
boys, the U.S. Supreme Court held that impoverished defendants in capital
cases are entitled to the effective assistance of counsel. 3' Robinson certainly received the benefit of dedicated and effective defense counsel. In30. Boo Radley is played by Robert Duvall in his screen debut. He never utters a word but
is unforgettable.
31. Powell v. Alabama, 287 U.S. 45, 71 (1932). The connections between the Scottsboro
case and To Kill a Mockingbird are discussed in Claudia Johnson, Without Tradition and Within
Reason: Judge Horton and Atticus Finch in Court, 45 ALA. L. REv. 483 (1994).
UNIVERSITY OF SAN FRANCISCO LAW REVIEW
[Vol. 30
deed, the judge who appointed Atticus probably didn't expect him to
challenge the whole social structure of the rural South.
Yet the reality was that Atticus' defense was doomed from the start.
There was no way that an all-white jury would disbelieve white people in
favor of an uppity black man who "felt sorry" for a white woman and
claimed that the white woman tried to seduce him. Perhaps Atticus should
have tried to negotiate a plea bargain; perhaps the prosecutor would have
settled for an assault charge. However, the case had such a high local profile that the prosecutor might not have felt that he was able to make such a
deal. After all, the honor of a white woman and the strict sexual code of the
old South were at stake.
The conclusion of the movie lays bare a difficult moral dilemma and
reveals Atticus' humanity. 3 2 Atticus has sacrificed a great deal to have the
truth told. Can he take part in covering up the truth that Boo Radley killed
Bob Ewell to protect Atticus's own children? At first, when he thinks his
son Jem killed Ewell, he refuses to agree to any coverup.
But when Atticus realizes that Boo was the killer, he reluctantly agrees
to hush up the truth. If the sheriff properly reported the incident, Ewell's
family and friends would demand that Boo be prosecuted. Boo probably
had a good defense; he killed Ewell in the reasonable belief that it was
necessary to protect the lives of the children. Still, the pitiful Boo, who
never utters a word, would have been destroyed if he became a public figure-this would "kill the mockingbird." Atticus concurs in the coverup. A
man sincerely devoted to truth and justice decided that there are values
more important than the truth.
Conclusion
To Kill a Mockingbird is an immortal work of art that succeeds brilliantly on every level. The screenplay, acting, direction, set design, cinematography, and music are all superb. 33 By telling its sad story through the
eyes of Atticus' innocent children, the movie acquires an intense poignancy. The socialization of children and the relationship between a loving
32.
For a profound analysis of the Boo Radley incident, see Thomas L. Shaffer, The Moral
Theology of Atticus Finch, 42 U. PrTr. L. REV. 181 (1981). Bryan Fair treats this incident as a
prototypical example of Southern law enforcement: the sheriff hushes up a case in which it would
be unjust to prosecute a white man yet went all out to prosecute an unjustly accused black man.
Bryan K. Fair, Using Parrotsto Kill Mockingbirds: Yet Another Racial Prosecutionand Wrongful Conviction in Maycomb, 45 ALA. L. REV. 403 (1994).
33.
The film received Academy Awards for best screenplay and best art direction. Gregory
Peck's portrayal of Atticus Finch earned him the award for best actor. The picture was also
nominated in the categories of best picture, best director, best cinematography, best musical score,
and best supporting actress (Mary Badham, who played Scout).
Summer 19961
ONE MOVIE NO LAWYER SHOULD MISS
single parent and his young children have never been depicted more movingly. Every detail is perfectly etched and the overall product is so powerful that its impression is able to last a lifetime.
The picture of race relations and class differences in the rural South is
dead on. To Kill a Mockingbird stands alone as the best courtroom movie
about law and race. 34 Who can forget the segregated courtroom, or the
Finch children huddled with the blacks in the gallery? The lynch mob?
The all-white jury? 35 The white-trash Ewell family? Mayella Ewell's forbidden sexual longings? The dignified, but doomed, Tom Robinson? The
utter futility of challenging the entrenched moral code of the rural South in
a closing argument?
Atticus' character is memorable because he is such an unlikely hero.
He's just a homespun small-town lawyer and state legislator struggling during the Depression to make a living (we see a former client paying Atticus'
fee with farm produce). He's a widower, raising a couple of kids pretty
much by himself. 36 Yet he has unexpected depths; he turns out to be a
deadeye shot when he kills a mad dog; he's one hell of a trial lawyer, even
though his normal practice consists of property law; and he's no goody twoshoes: he tolerates a coverup to shield the pathetic Boo Radley from ruinous exposure.
Few lawyers will ever be asked to wager their careers and the safety of
their families on the defense of a despised man in a hopeless case. But all
of us like to think that if such a call came, we would answer it to the very
best of our ability.
More realistically, the practice of law presents lawyers with many less
risky, less costly opportunities to use their skills for the public good. There
are pro bono cases. There are legal clinics. There are nonprofit groups that
need advice. There are needy clients who cannot pay full fees. There are
invitations to share knowledge in classes, seminars, or written articles. A
lawyer can treat clients, staff members, or opposing lawyers with civility,
34.
Few trial films other than To Kill a Mockingbird contain serious explorations of racism
in the law or the courtroom. TRIAL (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer 1955) focuses on a town's hatred for
Hispanics. THE Ox-Bow INCIDENT (Twentieth Century Fox 1943) and TWELVE ANGRY MEN
(United Artists 1957) also involve this theme. THEY WON'T FORGET (Warner Brothers 1937)
depicts a southern town where hatred of Yankees is even more virulent than hatred of blacks. The
backdrop of SOMMERSaY (Warner Brothers 1991) is the outrage of rural Southerners that a white
man would give land to blacks.
35. The Supreme Court had long since decided that the exclusion of blacks from juries
violated equal protection. Strauder v. West Virginia, 100 U.S. 303, 310 (1879). However, it
would be many years after the trial in To Kill a Mockingbird before juries were actually integrated
in the rural South.
36. In reality, he could never have raised them so well without the assistance of Calpurnia, a
black woman who becomes Finch's close friend and the children's surrogate mother.
1138
UNIVERSITY OF SAN FRANCISCO LAW REVIEW
[Vol. 30
gentleness, and empathy. An experienced lawyer can mentor a young lawyer or train a secretary to become a paralegal.
To all of the lawyers who decide to use their precious time and skills
in ways that don't go straight to the bottom line, Atticus Finch is the patron
saint. He is a mythic character. He is everything we lawyers wish we were
and hope we will become.