CLE: Popular Culture and Professionalism

This program is approved for 2 ethics credits.

Fictional, fictionalized, and real-life lawyers permeate American popular culture. Movies, television, radio, books, magazines, comic strips, editorial cartoons, popular music, and the cybersphere unquestionably affect how the public perceives lawyers and the legal system, as well as how lawyers perceive themselves and the roles they play in the legal system.

This program will utilize multimedia clips from both recent and more classic movie and television depictions of lawyers at work in a variety of settings to provoke what should be a lively discussion among the panelists and the audience about legal ethics, professionalism, lawyering skills, and – to a lesser degree – subject matter competence.

The panelists will discuss clips from some of all of the following: Unraveled (2012), Suits (2011-13), The Descendants (2011), The Lincoln Lawyer (2011), Puncture (2011), Win Win (2011), The Conspirator (2009), Michael Clayton (2007), Fracture (2007), The West Wing (1999-2006), A Reasonable Man (1999), A Civil Action (1998), Primal Fear (1996), Murder in the First (1995), Philadelphia (1993), My Cousin Vinny (1992), Class Action (1991), Eight Men Out (1988), The Verdict (1982), and To Kill A Mockingbird (1962).

Panelists

Jeffrey Stempel, Moderator, Doris S. and Theodore B. Lee Professor of Law
Keith Rowley, William S. Boyd Professor of Law
Dennis Kennedy, Partner, Bailey and Kennedy

Course Materials

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