Full Editorial
Hollywood loves courtroom dramas because they are riveting and relatively inexpensive to produce, and they also give talented performers a chance to show off their acting skills. Legal dramas rely on dialogue instead of special effects or action set pieces to move the story along, and the turning point is often a witness who was overlooked or a crucial piece of evidence that fell through the cracks. Let’s take a look at some of Hollywood’s most memorable lawyers and the legal strategies they used to win, or try to win, justice for their clients.
Atticus Finch
Gregory Peck won his only Oscar for portraying the country lawyer Atticus Finch in the 1963 adaption of Harper Lee’s bestselling book “To Kill a Mocking Bird.” In the book and the film, Finch represents a black man wrongfully accused of rape in 1930s Alabama. The evidence against his client is weak, but the jury returns a guilty verdict anyway. Despite everything that happens, Finch’s faith in justice and the rule of law remains unshaken.
Daniel Kaffee
The 1992 film “A Few Good Men” is best remembered for Jack Nicholson’s towering performance, but Tom Cruise’s portrayal of JAG lawyer Lieutenant Daniel Kaffee is just as good. Kaffee is assigned to a case involving two marines accused of murder because he has a reputation for negotiating plea deals and the military wants the case to be resolved quietly. Kaffee takes the case to court, and he prevails because he is able to outwit Nicholson’s Colonel Jessup during a tense cross-examination.
Vincent Gambini
Joe Pesci usually portrays violent gangsters on the screen, but he played an inexperienced Brooklyn lawyer named Vincent Gambini in the 1992 fish-out-of-water legal comedy “My Cousin Vinny.” Gambini’s first case after passing the New York bar exam is defending two college students charged with murder and robbery, and he uses expert witness testimony to prove their innocence. Gambini’s fiancé in the film grew up in a family of auto mechanics, and she is able to establish that tire marks found at the crime scene could not have been left by the car the defendants were traveling in.
Frank Galvin
Most legal dramas feature skilled and dedicated lawyers, but Paul Newman plays a washed-up alcoholic in the 1982 film “The Verdict.” Despite his drinking problem and dire financial situation, Newman’s Frank Galvin rejects a generous settlement offer and decides to take a medical malpractice case to court. Everything goes against Galvin in the early part of the film, but that all changes when he notices that one of the nurses involved quit her job and took a teaching position. Galvin racks the former nurse down, and he learns that the hospital where she once worked altered records to hide the truth. Galvin uses this information to obtain a $12 million verdict for his client.
The Law is the Star
All of these films feature amazing actors who gave incredible performances, but the law is the real star of the show. Our system of justice gives every accident victim the opportunity to seek legal remedies and every criminal defendant a chance to tell their story in court, and these films remind us just how important those rights are.
