Law and Popular Culture (LAW-814)
Professor Mark C. Niles
Tuesday
Course Description: This course examines the way in which law is depicted in American and
Western popular culture, specifically in mass marketed narrative film, "entertainment"
television, mass journalism, popular literary fiction, social media and blogs. The central topic of
the course is how the relationship between law and legal institutions on one hand, and justice
on the other, is depicted across the wide array of popular culture texts. Is law depicted as a
reliable means for attaining justice, or as a barrier to it? Is the answer to this question different
in different types of popular media? Topics will also include: the depiction of legal education in
popular fiction and in journalism and the “blogisphere”, lawbreakers as heroes, lawyers as both
heroes and villains, whistleblowers and the “War on Terror” in pop culture, the mainstream
journalistic depiction of law, lawyers and legal issues; and what all of these can teach us the
way that the masses view the law and lawyers and what lawyers might do differently (or better)
given this popular view.
Textbook:
Asimov & Mader, Law and Popular Culture: A Course Book, (2nd Ed.)
Supplemental Materials:
Available on MyWCL portal
Evaluation:
Papers. Weekly paper topics will be provided based on the assigned and additional reading.
Students will be required to write six(6) short papers over the course of the semester.
Class Participation. Students will be evaluated based on the quality (and to a lesser extent
quantity) of their participation of classroom discussion.
Final Grade. The final grade in this course will be calculated as follows:
75% grades on short papers and 25% class participation.
Reading Assignments:
Required Readings are assigned to all students in the course for each week’s class session.
Weekly “Additional Readings” are not assigned generally and are available to be chosen as the
basis for weekly paper topics.
Office Hours: I will have office hours on Monday and Wednesdays from 2 to 4PM.
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TOPICS AND READING ASSIGNMENTS
WEEK 1 (1/12)
Introduction to Law and Popular Culture and Law School in Popular Culture
Texts: The Paper Chase, One L, Legally Blonde, How to Get Away with Murder, Above the
Law, David Segal, Paul Campos
Required Reading:
One L: The Turbulent True Story of a First Year and Harvard Law
School, Scott Turow
Friedman, Law, Lawyers and Popular Culture, 98 Yale Law Journal
1579 (1989)
Mezey and Niles, Screening the Law: Ideology and Law in
American Popular Culture, 28 Colum. J. L. & Arts 91 (2005), pp. 91110
Asmiow & Mader, pp. 3-22; 105-123
Additional Reading:
Seaton, Law and Literature: Works, Criticism and Theory, 11 Yale
J. L. & Human. 479 (1999)
Kimball, Before the Paper Chase: Student Culture at Harvard
1895-1915, 61 J. Legal Educ. 30 (2011)
Vaitiello, Professor Kingsfield: The Most Misunderstood Character
in Literature, 33 Hofstra Law Review 955 (2005)
Turow, One L: The View in the Mirror, 75 U. Missou. KC L. Rev.
1015 (2010)
Aprile, Legal Blonde: Ethically Bold, 16 WTR Crim Just. 41 (2002)
Segal, Is Law School a Losing Game (NY Times, 1/1/11)
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/business/09law.html?_r=0
Paul Campos, The Law-School Scam (The Atlantic, 9/14)
Inside the Law School Scam
http://insidethelawschoolscam.blogspot.com/
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Jewel, You’re Doing It Wrong: How the Anti-Law School Scam
Blogging Movement Can Shape the Legal Profession, 12 Minn. J. L.
Sci & Tech 239 (2011)
Silver, Responsible Solutions: Reply to Tamanaha and Campos, 2
Tex. A&M L. Rev. 215 (2014)
Leiter, David Segal’s hatchet job on law schools
http://leiterlawschool.typepad.com/leiter/2011/11/anotherhatchet-job-on-law-schools.html
Leiter, Paul Campos’ final bit of revisionist history
http://leiterlawschool.typepad.com/leiter/2013/02/paulcamposs-final-bit-of-revisionist-history.html
WEEK 2 (1/19)
Law and Justice
Texts: The Grapes of Wrath (novel and film), Breaker Morant
Required Reading:
Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath Chapters 1-5; 12-22
Mezey and Niles, 176-185
Kershen, Breaker Morant, 22 Okla City L. R. 1 (1997)
James Curran, Rethinking Media and Democracy (from The Art of
Democracy)
Additional Reading:
Gilbert, John Steinbeck and the Law: Literary Cause and Judicial
Effect, 10 S.Cal. Interdisc. L. J. 1 (2000)
Furry, Scapegoats of the Empire, The True Story of Breaker
Morant’s Bushveldt Carbineers, 192 Mil. L. Rev. 127 (2007)
Miller, Mass Come Home (from Boxed In)
WEEK 3 (1/26)
The Presidency and Politics in Popular Culture
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Texts: Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Meet John Doe, The West Wing, Lincoln, House of
Cards, Scandal, The Good Wife, Veep
Required Reading:
Mezey and Niles, 114-133
Joseph McBride, Frank Capra: The Catastrophe of Success
(Chapters 14 & 15)
Sutin, The Presidential Powers of Josiah Bartlett, 28 N. Ky. L. Rev.
560 (2001)
Novkov, The Dangerous Fantasy of Lincoln: Framing Executive
Power as Presidential Mastery, 73 Md. L. Rev. 54 (2013)
Additional Reading:
Capra, The Name Above the Title, Chapters 14-16
Khoday, Prime-Time Saviors: The West Wing and the Cultivation of
a Unilateral American Responsibility to Protect, 19 S. Cal.
Interdisc. L. J. 1 (2009)
Sternbergh, The Post-Hope Politics of House of Cards(NY Times)
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/02/magazine/the-post-hopepolitics-of-house-of-cards.html?_r=0
Bady, House of Cards Should Stop Trying to Be The West Wing
(New Republic 3/15)
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/121214/house-cardsshould-stop-trying-be-west-wing
Wolcott, Washington Noir (Vanity Fair 8/13)
WEEKS 4 & 5 (2/2 - 2/9)
Lawbreakers as Heroes
Texts: Chicago, Cool Hand Luke, The Godfather, The Sting, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance
Kid, Thelma and Louise, The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, The Wire, Empire, The Americans
Required Reading:
Mezey and Niles, pp. 161-166
Reynolds, Review of Cool Hand Luke, 22 Okla City L. Rev. 22 (1997)
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Herman, Thelma and Louise and Bonnie and Jean: Images of
Women as Criminals, 2 S.Cal. Rev. L. & Women’s Stud. 53 (1992)
Sarma, Why We Would Spare Walter White: Breaking Bad and the
True Power of Mitigation, 45 N.W. L. Rev. 429 (2015)
Power, The Wire and Alternative Stories and Law and Inequality,
46 Ind. L. Rev. 425 (2013)
Additional Reading:
Wiegand, Deception and Artifice: Thelma, Louise and the Legal
Hermeneutic, 22 Okla City U. L. Rev. 25 (1997)
Gutterman, “Failure to Communicate” The Reel Prison Experience,
55 SMU L. Rev. 1515 (2002)
Evans, Stealing Away: Black Women, Outlaw Culture and the
Rhetoric of Rights, 28 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev. 263 (1993)
Harris, Innocence and the Sopranos, 49 NYL. Sch. L. Rev 577 (2005)
McMillian, Drug Markets, Fringe Markets, and the Lessons of
Hamsterdam, 69 Wash & Lee L. Rev. 849 (2012)
Bandes, And All The Pieces Matter: Thoughts on The Wire and the
Criminal Justice System, 8 Ohio St. Crim L. Rev. 435 (2011)
WEEKS 6 & 7 (2/16 – 2/23)
Lawyers as Heroes (and Villains)
Texts: To Kill a Mockingbird, Perry Mason, Anatomy of a Murder, The Verdict, Erin
Brockovich, The Sweet Hereafter, Ally McBeal, Better Call Saul, A Civil Action,
Required Reading:
Mezey and Niles, pp. 140-160
Asimow & Mader, pp. 23-84
Chase, Civil Action Cinema, 1999 L.R. Mich. St. U Det. C. L. 945
(1999)
Lenoir, The Case of the Esteemed Lawyer, 76 Tex. B. J. 523 (2013)
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Additional Reading:
Surat, Exploring the Hidden Domains of Civil Justice: “Naming,
Blaming and Claiming” in Popular Culture, 50 DePaul L. Rev. 425
(2000)
Ryan, No Longer Perry Mason: How Modern American Television
Portrayal of Attorneys Shifts Public Opinion, 17 U. Den. Sports &
Ent. 133 (2015)
McCann and Haltom, Ordinary Heroes v. Failed Lawyers – Public
Interest Litigation in Erin Brockovich and Other Contemporary
Films, 33 Law and Social Inquiry 1045 (2008)
Erger, The Zealous Advocacy of Saul Goodman, 101 Ill. B.J. 538
Atkinson, Liberating Lawyers: Divergent Parallels in Intruder in the
Dust and To Kill a Mockingbird, 49 Duke L. J. 601 (1999)
Shaffer, The Moral Theology of Atticus Finch, 42 U. Pitt. L. Rev.
181 (1981)
Gladwell, The Courthouse Ring, The New Yorker (8/10/09)
McMillian, Atticus Finch as Racial Accommodator: Answering
Malcolm Gladwell, 77 Tenn. L. Rev. 701 (2013)
Souther, The Artist’s Search for Justice in the Justice System: A
Discussion of Representative Films of Sidney Lumet…, 25 Cardozo
Arts & Ent. L. J. 687 (2007)
Bergman, The Movie Lawyers’ Guide to Redemptive Legal Practice,
48 UCLA L. Rev. 1393 (2001)
McMillian, Tortured Souls: Unhappy Lawyers Viewed Through the
Medium of Film, 19 Seton Hall J. Sports & Ent. L. 31 (2009)
Epstein, From Willy to Perry Mason: The Hegemony of the Lawyers
Statesman in 1950’s Television, 53 Syracuse L. Rev. 1201(2003)
O’Neill, There Will Be Blame: Misfortune and Injustice in the Sweet
Hereafter, 2008 Den. U. Sports & Ent. L.J. 19 (2008)
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WEEKS 8 & 9 (3/1 - 3/15)
Criminal Law in Popular Culture
Texts: Andy Griffith Show, Dragnet, Hill Street Blues, Twelve Angry Men, Law and Order, The
Practice, One False Move, Lone Star, Homicide: Life on the Street, The Corner, The Wire,
Fargo, The Closer, The Killing
Required Reading:
Stark, Perry Mason Meets Sonny Crockett: The History of Lawyers
and the Police as Television Heroes, 42 U. Miami L. Rev. 229
(1987)
Marder, Introduction to the 50th Anniversary of 12 Angry Men, 82
Chi.-Kent L. Rev. 557 (2007)
Montoya, Lines of Demarcation in a Town Called Frontera, New
Mexico Law Review
Abramson, The Jury and Popular Culture, 50 DePaul L. Rev. 497
(2000)
Additional Reading:
Epstein, For and Against the People: Television Prosecutor Image
and Cultural Power of the Legal Profession, 34 U. Tol. L. Rev. 814
(2003)
Marder, Introduction to the Jury at a Crossroad: The American
Experience, 78 Chi.-Kent L. Rev. 909 (2003)
Reichelt, Standing Alone: Conformity, Coercion and The Protection
of the Holdout Juror, 40 U. Mich. J.L. Reform 569 (2007)
WEEK 10 (3/22)
Vigilantes, Private Eyes and Superheores
Texts: The Thin Man, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence, Chinatown, Seven Samurai, Rockford
Files, Sherlock, Batman, Superman, The Watchmen, The Avengers
Required Reading:
Scott Eyman, Print the Legend (Chapter 26)
Additional Reading:
Post, On the Popular Image of the Lawyer: Reflections in a Dark
Glass, 75 Calif. L. Rev. 379 (1987)
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WEEK 11 (3/29)
Prisons in Popular Culture
Texts: Birdman of Alcatraz, Escape From Alcatraz, Murder in the First, Shawshank Redemption,
Orange is the New Black
Required Reading:
Gutterman, “Failure to Communicate” The Reel Prison Experience,
55 SMU L. Rev. 1515 (2002)
Additional Reading:
WEEK 12 (4/5)
Whistleblowers and Snitches in Popular Culture
Texts: On The Waterfront, Anatomy of a Murder, The China Syndrome, Silkwood, Norma Rae,
The Informant, Journalism)
Required Reading:
Anders, Reviewing Silkwood At 25: The Reel Impact on
Environmental Policy, 49 S. Tex. L. Rev. 451 (2007)
Additional Reading:
Sullivan, Imagining the Criminal Law: When Client and Lawyer
Meet in the Movies, 25 U. Ark. Little Rock L. Rev. 665 (2003)
WEEK 13 (4/12)
The War on Terror in Popular Culture
Texts: Minority Report (film and short story), 24, Homeland, Battlestar Glactica
Required Reading:
Niles, Preempting Justice: “Precrime” in Fiction and in Fact, 9
Seattle Journal for Social Justice 275 (2010)
Additional Reading:
WEEK 14 (4/19)
Legal Journalism
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Texts: Crime TV, Serial, Supreme Court coverage, Crime Coverage
Required Reading:
Additional Reading:
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