Increasingly in law schools, films with a legal theme are being used to identify how law and lawyers are perceived in various aspects of legal activity ranging from legal practice (ie, intrinsic lawyer skills including legal argument, negotiation and advocacy) to various aspects of the legal process (eg, the function of the judge and jury) as well as important elements of legal and ethical theory.
Classic films such as To Kill a Mockingbird, (1962), The Verdict, (1982) and Suspect, (1987) provide excellent examples of popular perceptions of men and women in the legal profession. The interesting question that emerges from these films is whether screen portrayals of lawyers actually reflect our popular cultural experience of what a lawyer should be like and what he (or she) should represent. There is, of course, no doubt that fictional portrayals do not match real life. What is interesting, however, is to see whether these images accurately reflect the popular image of the law and lawyers. Popular image
