Literature, television and film abound with depictions of the
archetypal “good lawyer.” From Perry Mason and his laughably
implausible and evidentiarily dubious perfect record of criminal
defense to the unbreakable moral courage of Atticus Finch standing up
for justice and righteousness in the face of unbearable social
pressure and nearly consummated threats of violence, the attorney who
is willing to rise above the moral constraints imposed the profession
has been idealized in countless works of art. Finch in particular
stirs grandiose images of virtue and decency, having been named the
greatest hero in the history of American film by the American Film
Institute and has been cited by both famed civil rights attorney
Morris Dees and federal judge Richard Matsch as inspirations in their
having become lawyers.
In fact, lawyers with severe moral failings in fiction can conform to
the “good lawyer” archetype as an act of redemption. When Sydney
Carton, the alcoholic and lazy, but brilliant lawyer of Charles
Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities chooses to do his “far, far better
thing” by sacrificing his own life so that his unrequited love’s
morally superlative husband Charles Darnay can avoid his unjust date
with a guillotine, Carton completes an apotheosis into the ranks of
fictional “good lawyers” with one grandly romantic gesture. His is the
greatest show of devotion to a client in artistic history.
However, there is another side to this coin that evinces the
ambivalence (at best) that many people feel towards the legal
profession. I have a soft spot in my heart for the “bad lawyer.” When
I write “bad lawyer” I do so with a very specific idea in mind. I do
not refer to any of the scores of evil, greedy, venal, or
conventionally immoral attorney’s that litter literature and film,
from the corrupt Mr. Dowling of Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones to the
slimy gang lawyer Maurice Levy on HBO’s The Wire. Rather, by “bad
lawyer” I mean a particular sort of relatable if undesirable
incompetent lawyer that are most vividly prevalent in television
comedies.
The prototype “bad lawyer” is surely the alcoholic, incompetent,
thieving, lying “shyster” Lionel Hutz from The Simpsons, who operates
a law firm/shoe repair business out of a shopping mall called “I Can’t
Believe It’s A Law Firm!” Hutz is a grand skewering of the worst of
the legal profession, having, at various points in the series, offered
a client a belt of scotch at 9:30 in the morning, repeatedly run over
a judge’s son with his car, delivered a closing argument without
pants, and forgotten the meaning of the terms mistrial and lawyer.
The closest match for Hutz in the pantheon of “bad lawyers” is Henry
Winkler’s portrayal of the opportunistic and lazy Barry Zuckerkorn on
Fox’s Arrested Development. Zuckerkorn, almost a live-action Lionel
Hutz, apparently believes that a husband and wife cannot be arrested
for the same crime, refuses to read a proposed plea agreement because
“it’s really long,” and cites “Ask Jeeves” for his legal advice.
These characters are obviously exaggerated comedic creations, but they
do highlight an important aspect about the way the public very often
perceives attorneys. Lawyers are perhaps the most reviled of all
modern professions. According to the American Bar Association the
legal profession is inundated with “stories of lawyers who
misrepresent their qualifications, overpromise, are not upfront about
their fees, charge too much for their services… and fail to return
client calls.” Each of these all too common phenomena can be
illustrated in the behavior of the two fictional attorneys I have
described. For example, Lionel Hutz claimed to have legal degrees from
Harvard, Yale, MIT, Oxford, the Sorbonne, and the Louvre. In one
episode, he explicitly tells a client, “the state bar forbids me from
promising you a big cash settlement. But just between you and me, I
promise you a big cash settlement.” Hutz also exemplifies lawyers who
misrepresent their fees when he claims that a business card he
produced should read, “Works on contingency? No. Money Down!”
Zuckerkorn is representative of the final two complaints as, in nearly
all of his appearances on the show, he overcharges for his woeful
services and aggressively rounds up his billable hours, charging a
half-hour for a five-minute hone conversation. He also has a
noticeable penchant for avoiding his client’s phone calls at all
costs.
Despite the myriad depressing ways fictional “bad lawyers” can reflect
true public views of the legal profession, it is worth noting that in
some respects such characters are closer to good-natured caricatures
of the profession than they are true indictments of lawyers. Hutz in
particular is shown to be more desperate for money than malevolent as
he lives at a local YMCA and often struggles, almost poignantly in one
episode, with his alcohol abuse.
I want to close by mentioning my truly favorite “bad lawyer.” If bad
fictional lawyers have their own Atticus Finch it is surely Hamilton
Burger, Perry Mason’s long-suffering, antagonistic prosecutor, with a
penchant for charging innocent people with murder and then allowing
his opponent to derail the case with surprise witnesses and witness
stand confessions. Burger, who is really more overmatched than inept,
is synthesis of the public’s dual perceptions of attorney’s. On the
one hand he is noble and honest and always joins Perry Mason in his
motion to dismiss the case once the defendant’s innocence has been
established. He offers a unique example of the combination of hopeful
expectation and grim wariness that artistic representations of the
legal profession often display. Hamilton Burger even nearly matches
Atticus Finch in his capacity to inspire. Supreme Court Justice Sonia
Sotomayor cites Burger as influencing her decision to become a
prosecutor. In one episode, after winning yet another case against
his hapless opponent, Mason attempts to console Burger. “No, my job as
a prosecutor is to do justice,” Burger replies, “and justice is served
when a guilty man is convicted and an innocent man is not.”