Professional Responsibility
Spring 2004
Movie Assignment
1. Your task is to view and report on the ethics and professional behavior of an attorney as presented in a full length movie.
2. Students may work individually or in teams of two or three. Each team will submit a written report on one movie. The report is due Monday, April 5 and should be submitted to Jan Ingram.
3. No more than five teams may report on a single movie. The first five teams to select a movie will be given priority. Students should indicate their preferences in writing to Jan Ingram in Room 107.
4. Movies:
a) Older Movies
“To Kill a Mockingbird” “Twelve Angry Men”
“Anatomy of a Murder”* “Inherit the Wind”
“Adam’s Rib”*
b) Civil Litigation
“The Verdict”* “Kramer v. Kramer”
“From the Hip” “Nuts”
“The Good Mother” “Class Action”*
“The Music Box”* “Guilty by Suspicion”*
“The Rainmaker” “Philadelphia”
“A Civil Action “Changing Lanes
“Erin Brockovich” “Runaway Jury”
c) Criminal Litigation
“The Client” “Presumed Innocent”
“The Firm” “Star Chamber”
“A Time to Kill” “Reversal of Fortune”
“Body Heat” “Suspect”
“Absence of Malice”
“And Justice for All”
“Jagged Edge”*
“Legal Eagles”
“The Accused”*
“Cape Fear”
d) Military Court-Martials
“A Few Good Men”
“Rules of Engagement”
e) International Settings
“Cry in the Dark”
“Judgement at Nuremberg”
“Witness for the Prosecution”
“In the Name of the Father”
“Breaker Morant”*
“A Man for all Seasons”
f) Other Settings
“All the President’s Men”
“The Godfather, I, II”*
“Amistad”
*The Law School has a copy that you may borrow. See Jan Ingram in the Dean’s Office.
Note: All warranties as to quality, morality, or appropriateness are disclaimed. You may select movies not listed if they are approved in advance, prior to Spring Break.
5. To the greatest extent possible, you should treat your movie as set in Arkansas in 2004. This paper is not a research paper. You are not expected to include a checklist of all ethical issues, nor are you expected to provide definite answers to all ethical issues. Your paper should properly be viewed as an essay or character sketch of a character or characters. The focus of your paper should be a critical examination of the ethical dilemmas that confront lawyers and to which the black letter of the Rules provide no answer.
.6. FORMAT: You may use whatever format you wish: a traditional essay, a movie review, a character sketch, or other variations. See Section 11 below.
7. PURPOSE: It is not enough to merely list ethical issues or ethical mistakes. Rather,
the paper should demonstrate your awareness of the gray issues in legal ethics; your paper should struggle (in some way) with the issues to which there are no obvious answers. You do not need to cover every lawyer in the movie. You do not need to cover every ethical issue in the movie.
8.QUESTIONS: You may find it appropriate to deal with some of these questions in your paper:
Were the actions of the lawyer wrong? Unethical?
Why?
What should the lawyer have done?
Did she have alternatives?
Should she be disciplined? How?
What can today’s lawyer learn from her mistakes?
9.LENGTH OF PAPER: A quality paper in a traditional essay format can be
completed in 10-12 pages (double spaced, with normal font and margins). However, length is not a controlling factor. In addition, papers in non-traditional style or format will have varying length. For examples, papers with dialogue for letters or documents may be of far different length.
10.Any approach is appropriate, provided they do not merely offer a
shallow or simplistic analysis. Therefore, a paper might attempt imaginative approaches - for example, a comparison of old and new ethics; two movies with domestic relations lawyers; military court martials; judicial ethics; civil rights lawyers; women lawyers; lawyers who are family members. Your paper may have a narrow focus or a more comprehensive focus.
11. You may use whatever literary format you wish. Papers in the past have included:
diaries law school exams
dialogues television shows
newspapers press conference
disciplinary proceedings church bulletin
CALI programs menus
debates judicial opinions
graduation speeches suicide notes
files of psychiatrists
However, no one is required to use such a format. In addition, some unusual formats may distort or distract from the analysis.
a) Some papers have used contemporary legal settings:
Disciplinary hearings
Professional Responsibility Newsletter
CALI program
Problem from Morgan/Rotunda Casebook (Anatomy of a Murder)
Law School Debate
Senate confirmation hearings
CLE program
intra office memos
Application for admission to practice
b) Some papers have used literary techniques from other sources:
The three ghosts of ‘A Christmas Carol’ (A Civil Action)
1835 Newspaper (Amistad)
Poem (Nuts)
Reflections by children (To Kill a Mockingbird)
Time Magazine Man of the Year (The Client)
Today’s Child magazine (Kramer v. Kramer)
The 12 Steps of Alcoholic Anonymous (The Verdict)
c) Some papers have used unique settings:
The characters around the bar at Cheers (The Verdict)
Interrogation by St. Peter at the gates of Heaven
(Class Action)
A conversation between Siskel and Ebert (Reversal of
Fortune)
Oprah Winfrey and Larry King Show (The Verdict)
Interview on Crossfire (And Justice for All)
Correspondence with Dear Abby
Letter to Mom (The Jagged Edge)
The Twilight Zone
Conversations between Justices Thomas and Ginsburg
1888 correspondence (Sommersby)
d) Some papers have utilized the prior education or
experience of the authors:
Jungian analysis of attorney-client relationship
(Philadelphia)
Military court-martials (Rules of Engagement)
Law enforcement experience in evidence handling
(Presumed Innocent)
Ethics through the eyes of Thomas Hobbes (Suspect)
A playwright’s sequel (Class Action)
Jury consultant (12 Angry Men)
e) Some papers have combined several movies:
A comparison of Sir Thomas More and Mitch McDeere (A Man
for All Seasons and The Firm)
Lawyers in John Grisham movies
Correspondence between women attorneys (Adam’s Rib and
The Accused)
Comparison of the 1962 and 1992 versions of ‘Cape Fear’
First year associates in law firms (From the Hip and The Firm)
Conversations between the Bonners and the Wards (Adam’s Rib and Class Action)
f) Some papers have assumed a change in political or legal history:
The murder of O.J. Simpson (The Star Chamber)
g) However, some papers have been so novel and indeed far-fetched that the merits of the paper have been lost:
The perspective of a mouse observing a trial
Calvin and Hobbs
12 boxing judges
Quintis Cincinnatus Lamar
Dead Sea Scrolls
Earth Probe
Views from a Mustache
Letter to Santa Claus
Conversation between Luke Skywalker and the San Diego Chicken
Conversation of a Mexican Grandfather and Satan
13.. Nine papers from earlier classes are on the library’s home page under final examinations:
“The Verdict” (Stace VanderStek and Patrick Lewis)
“The Rainmaker” (Holly Brady and Paul Swann)
“Twelve Angry Men” (Jason Carter and Gina Smith)
“A Few Good Men” (Bryce Lair and Diana Hewitt)
“The Client” (Marc Crumpton)
“I Am Sam” (Alane Dale)
“Anatomy of a Murder” (David Pease, Pen Poole)
“Body Heat” (Debra Winters, Emily Lackey)
“From the Hip” (Zane Chrisman, Kim McMillen)
“Erin Brockovich (Shawn Johnson, Ashley Mills, Frank Falkner)
14. The paper will be graded on the quality of the writing; the depth, breadth, and scope of the analysis; the creativity and imagination displayed, and similar factors. Grades will be lowered for papers that violate fundamental rules of writing.
15. Your papers should be identified only by social security numbers.
16. Outstanding: 27-30 points
Good: 24-26 points
Satisfactory: 20-23 points
Unsatisfactory: 15-19 points
Worthless: 0-15 points
17. Late papers will incur a penalty of 2 points per day.
18. The attached pages from The National Jurist (November 2002) provides a capsule summary of many of the movies on the list.
19. For your possible interest, a more scholarly and comprehensive evaluation of these issues is found in a recent issue of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Journal, featuring a symposium on Imagining the Law: Lawyers and Legal Issues in the Popular Culture.
The articles include:
Paul R. Joseph, Saying Goodbye to Ally McBeal, 25 U. Ark. Little Rock L. Rev. 459 (2002).
David Ray Papke, Cautionary Tales: The Woman As Lawyer In Contemporary Hollywood Cinema, 25 U. Ark. Little Rock L. Rev. 485 (2002).
Christine Alice Corcos, Legal Fictions: Irony, Storytelling, Truth, and Justice in the Modern Courtroom Drama, 25 U. Ark. Little Rock L. Rev. 503 (2002).
Richard J. Peltz, On a Wagon Train to Afghanistan: Limitations on Star Trek’s Prime Directive, 25 U. Ark. Little Rock L. Rev. 635 (2002).
J. Thomas Sullivan, Imagining the Criminal Law: When Client and Lawyer Meet in the Movies, 25 U. Ark. Little Rock L. Rev. 665 (2002).