Law in Popular Culture

What Gitmo detainees are reading: John Grisham books allowed after ‘misunderstanding’

Two books by John Grisham—The King of Torts and The Innocent Man—are no longer off limits to a Guantanamo detainee. The Wall Street Journal Law Blog (sub. req.) inquired about the books after learning they had been seized from a lawyer who brought them for a detainee. Pentagon spokesman Lt.…

Aug 15, 2013 11:15 AM CDT

Tests on degraded DNA can’t link ‘In Cold Blood’ killers to unsolved Florida slayings

Did the two men made infamous by Truman Capote’s true-crime novel, In Cold Blood, kill not only the four members of a Kansas farm family, for which they were executed, but four members of a Florida family, too? Law enforcement officials believe Richard Hickock and Perry Smith likely were involved.…

Aug 13, 2013 10:20 PM CDT

What did Shakespeare think about lawyers? Panel counts the ways

It was clear that this would not be a typical CLE program when Jeffrey Watkins leaped onto a chair and began quoting William Shakespeare like a pro. Actually, Watkins is a pro. He is artistic director of the Atlanta Shakespeare Company, which in 2011 became the first American company to…

Aug 9, 2013 2:19 AM CDT

12 must-see movie sites in San Francisco

Scenic San Francisco, the host of this year’s ABA Annual Meeting, is a favorite for movie producers looking for dramatic on-location shots. For the lawyers traveling to the City by the Bay this week, we’ve pulled together a gallery of 12 must-see movie sites in San Francisco (see Gallery). Consider…

Aug 8, 2013 1:30 PM CDT

Forget law review articles. Law grad portrays views of Scalia and Ginsburg in opera

Derrick Wang, a composer and recent University of Maryland law grad, got the inspiration for his new opera while reading U.S. Supreme Court opinions in law school. The opera, Scalia/Ginsburg, is based on the words of Justices Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, friends who share a love of opera…

Aug 7, 2013 11:10 AM CDT

25 greatest law novels…ever!

The ABA Journal has been exploring a fascinating romance between lawyers and popular culture. We’ve traced this connection through films and plays and television, and the conclusion is inescapable: Not only do lawyers seem to love pop culture; pop culture seems to love lawyers back.

But this year we’re raising the bar. We’ve attempted to survey the world of literature to find the best portrayals of lawyers and the law. To do so, we convened a panel of experts—a worthy group of particularly well-read lawyers and scholars—and asked for their nominations. We composed a ballot that included more than 100 of the greatest novels ever written—novels whose storylines revolved around lawyers or legal cases or the moral milieu of the law.

Aug 1, 2013 10:00 AM CDT

Benito Cereno, by Herman Melville

This is an online extra to our August 2013 cover story, 25 greatest law novels ever. Herman Melville’s Billy Budd is often, and rightly so, the go-to story when it comes to law and literature. It starkly delineates the terrible choices that judges are faced with; and it demonstrates, as…

Aug 1, 2013 9:49 AM CDT

Bleak House, by Charles Dickens

This is an online extra to our August 2013 cover story, 25 greatest law novels ever. Everyone knows that among novelists and storytellers, Charles Dickens always does it better. And even when it came to the law—especially the injustices, absurdities and flat-out futility of the Court of Chancery—Dickens was like…

Aug 1, 2013 9:48 AM CDT

In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote

This is an online extra to our August 2013 cover story, 25 greatest law novels ever. In Cold Blood tells of the November 1959 murders of four members of the Clutter family in Holcomb, Kan. It’s not a work of fiction, and so arguably shouldn’t even be a contender for…

Aug 1, 2013 9:47 AM CDT

Defending Jacob, by William Landay

This is an online extra to our August 2013 cover story, 25 greatest law novels ever. There’s a reason that lawyers and judges speak of the “cold record.” Transcripts possess a special kind of lifelessness. As a law clerk and lawyer, I spent hour upon hour reading transcripts—deposition transcripts, hearing…

Aug 1, 2013 9:46 AM CDT

Robbers stole techniques from Ben Affleck movie, feds say; film clips to be shown to jurors at trial

They didn’t dress as nuns. But a trio of alleged New York robbers are accused of taking other techniques from a Ben Affleck movie—including the use of masks to disguise their identities and committing a robbery while wearing police uniforms. Now federal prosecutors are expected to show clips from the…

Jul 31, 2013 7:25 PM CDT

Paul Goldstein’s ‘Havana Requiem’ wins Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction

Stanford law professor Paul Goldstein and his novel Havana Requiem have been awarded the third annual Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction. The prize will be awarded at a ceremony in Washington, D.C. on Sept. 19, in conjunction with the National Book Festival. The prize, named for the Pulitzer Prize-winning…

Jul 15, 2013 1:30 PM CDT

‘Caddyshack’ gopher techniques make appearance in Florida appellate opinion

A Florida appellate opinion is getting some attention because of a footnote referencing gopher-killing techniques in the movie Caddyshack. The Florida case involves a suit by two vendors who lost business in Broward County’s revamped transit program. The court includes a discussion of government contract law and an opinion involving…

Jun 27, 2013 1:20 PM CDT

How broadcast networks get SCOTUS decisions: ‘The running of the interns’

Broadcast news interns sported tennis shoes along with their suits and dresses this week, as they readied themselves for an important job: sprinting about 300 feet to deliver Supreme Court opinions to waiting journalists. BuzzFeed Politics supplied photos and video of the “cherished Washington, D.C., tradition” it dubbed “running of…

Jun 27, 2013 12:55 PM CDT

Grisham book becomes a Broadway play

John Grisham’s first book, A Time to Kill, will be portrayed on the Broadway stage this fall. The courtroom thriller is the first Grisham novel to be adapted for the stage, report the Associated Press and the New York Times Arts Beat blog. The book is about a white lawyer…

Jun 26, 2013 1:40 PM CDT