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The first major Courtroom drama, Perry Mason ran from 1957-1966 and started the trend of unrealistic portrayal of those working in the legal profession and many more shows have followed. Like The Practice, L.A Law, Law and Order and Ally McBeal, Boston Legal has all the hallmarks of a popular legal TV drama. It has a massive budget and famous actors filling the main roles but that is where the similarities end.
I was delighted to discover that Boston Legal has managed to achieve what no other courtroom drama has - it has successfully depicted lawyers as real people. Denny Crane and Allan Shore are not perfect, they have concerns about their ability, they do not win every case and they are morally and ethically challenged just like the rest of us. This is a huge development for courtroom dramas and the creators of this show ought to be applauded.
Law has always proved a popular choice for authors, playwrights and the creators of popular legal TV dramas. The legal profession makes a compelling story for numerous reasons - conflict between parties will always draw viewers, which is why legal dramas emphasize the trial and ignore the fact that the vast majority of civil and criminal cases are settled out of court. Legal dramas also focus on situations where there is an obvious injustice or situations where the plaintiff or defendant is very weird, quirky and unusual. As a result, defenses such as insanity occur far more often in legal drama than in real life. I can appreciate that to make a good TV everyday tasks such as creating trusts, wills and dealing with property transfers hardly makes for riveting viewing but it is the way in which these programs depict the lawyers themselves that seems somewhat unfair. Most lawyers on TV spend a high percentage of their time in court or preparing to go to court. This is because courtrooms, by their nature, lend themselves to dramatic depiction, certainly more than the everyday practice of law in the real world. Unfortunately, the average day of the average lawyer is much more likely to be spent reading documents, negotiating with other lawyers or engaging in other mundane activities that are unlikely to attract a large audience. To further entice viewers, there is always always always a dishonest, corrupt and immoral lawyer trying to rip someone off.
As a rule, lawyers have historically been portrayed in one of two ways. They are either the hero lawyers epitomized by Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird or they are the corrupt, crooked and scheming lawyers favoured by John Grisham in The Firm. Why? Because people simply don't want to read about the actual lives of lawyers, they want either extreme and that is what they get. John Grisham capitalized on this and The Firm sold over two million copies in its first print, after being declared by Publishers Weekly that Grisham was "the bestselling novelist of the 90s," it is no surprise then that people have an unrealistic perception of lawyers and the legal profession as a whole.
It is for this reason that Boston Legal is a welcome breath of fresh air, When Denny Crane has to stop and consider the moral implications of representing someone he knows is wholly evil or when Alan Shore agrees to represent a group of people who can in no way afford legal costs themselves, the accurate depiction of 99% of lawyers in the real world becomes apparent.
Boston Legal has successfully achieved brilliant and captivating courtroom drama while contemporaneously giving lawyers a heart. This is appreciated by the profession as a whole, too long have they been demonized and unfairly affected by the greedy and corrupt lawyers that have previously graced our screens. But we have a long way to go, Elle Woods in Legally Blonde is a whole other story...
