The 25 Greatest Legal TV Shows

The 25 Greatest Legal TV Shows: The Jury

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ED BARK is an award-winning TV critic who blogs about all things television from his website, UncleBarky.com. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Bark is former president of the Television Critics Association and a former board member of the George Foster Peabody Awards.

CHRISTINE A. CORCOS is an associate professor of law at Louisiana State University Law Center and an associate professor of women’s and gender studies at Louisiana State University A&M in Baton Rouge. She teaches courses in media law, entertainment law, advanced torts, and gender and the law, and is a co-author of Law and Popular Culture: Text, Notes and Questions.

JILL GOLDSMITH is a writer and producer for television, with credits on several Emmy-winning series, including NYPD Blue, The Practice, Ally McBeal, Law & Order and Boston Legal. Before working in television, she spent seven years as a Cook County public defender. She received her J.D. from Washington University School of Law in St. Louis.

JOHN WESLEY HALL, president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, practices in Little Rock, Ark. A search-and-seizure scholar, Hall has tried about 250 jury trials, handled more than 200 appeals and twice argued in the U.S. Supreme Court. He also blogs at FourthAmendment.com.

ROBERT M. JARVIS is a professor of law at Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and the co-editor of Prime Time Law: Fictional Television as Legal Narrative.

PHILIP N. MEYER is a professor at Vermont Law School, where he teaches torts, criminal law, and law and popular culture. He holds an M.F.A. from the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop and was awarded the Mary Roberts Rinehart Foundation Grant in Fiction. He is a longtime film and television junkie and has written several screenplays.

ELIE MYSTAL is editor of the website Above the Law. A former attorney with Debevoise & Plimpton, he describes himself as liberal, Catholic and African-American—and a Mets fan who prefers the PlayStation 3 over the Xbox 360.

DAVID R. PAPKE is a law professor at Marquette University, where he teaches property and family law, and various courses and seminars tied to law and the humanities. Papke has written several books, including Narrative and the Legal Discourse: Storytelling and the Law and Heretics in the Temple: Americans Who Reject the Nation’s Legal Faith.

KIMBERLIANNE PODLAS is an assistant professor of media law at the University of North Carolina at Greens­boro. Her award-winning research considers the impact of television shows—such as CSI, The People’s Court, Law & Order and The Simpsons—on the public’s understanding of the law. Before entering academia, Podlas served as associate appellate counsel with the Criminal Appeals Bureau in New York City.

ELAYNE RAPPING is a professor of American studies at the State University of New York at Buffalo. Her books include Law and Justice as Seen on TV and Media-tions: Forays into the Culture and Gender Wars. She has written extensively on a range of cultural topics, from the 12-step recovery movement to the coming of local “eye witless news.” Her writings on media and popular culture have appeared in such publications as The Nation, The Village Voice and Cineaste.

MARLYN ROBINSON is a reference librarian at the University of Texas School of Law. She created and maintains the school’s Law in Pop Culture collection.

KEITH A. ROWLEY is a professor of law at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas and the founder and host of the school’s Law & Popular Culture film series. He is a graduate of Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and the University of Texas School of Law. Rowley’s current writing projects include an exploration of lawyers and legal issues in The West Wing, as well as a lawyer’s look at baseball’s Black Sox scandal.

See: “The 25 Greatest Legal TV Shows.”

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