The Good Wife: Maybe a Not-So-Good Lawyer
It's called dramatic license, and it certainly wouldn't win you a license to practice law.
The Good Wife: Maybe a Not-So-Good Lawyer
Jonathan Storm, Inquirer Television Critic
It's called dramatic license, and it certainly wouldn't win you a license to practice law.
Condolences to Julianna Margulies for losing Sunday's Golden Globe to Katey Sagal, though Sagal deserved it. We still love Alicia Florrick and The Good Wife Tuesdays at 10 p.m. on CBS, one of the most intricate, intriguing and best-acted dramas on TV.
But, oy. The license they take in the practice of law. Last week's episode had the firm representing clients on both sides of a case, after supposedly inserting a "Chinese wall" to keep associates apart. It would never happen.
Worse, right-wing gun maven Kurt McVeigh (played by Gary Cole) last season switched sides as an expert witness, as a prelude to a roll in the hay with senior partner Diane Lockhart, one of Florrick's bosses. According to Atty. Jeffrey Spitz of the L.A. law firm Greenberg, Glusker, Fields, Claman & Machtinger, California law has a well-known judicial precedent, Shadow Traffic Network v. Superior Court, 24 Cal. App. 4th 1067, that expressly forbids that sort of thing. (The side-switching, not the hay-rolling.) Illinoios, where Wife is set, probably has a similar precedent, says Spitz.
"The bottom line is part of the exploration of the show is some of the more corrupt sides of the law," executive producer Robert King told me, "kind of the gray area of the legal profession."
"There are three lawyers on the writing staff," said his wife and partner Michelle King, "and then there’s also a lawyer tech advisor we turn to. So it’s always that balancing act of trying to get it right and still be dramatic."
Besides some of the questionable legal practices, there is also the ridiculous case compression, in which a crime is committed one day and the jury renders its verdict a couple of day later. TV fans, but not necessarily lawyers, have gotten used to it over the years.
"My husband is a lawyer," said Margulies. "He wasn't a big television watcher. And of course, he has to watch it now. And when he saw the first episode, he’s like, 'Well, that would have taken months, that case.' And I said, 'You’re absolutely right. And then again, we have 42 minutes.' And that’s our artistic license as storytellers on television. ...
"Now, it doesn’t bother him anymore. Otherwise, how would we be able to tell the story?"
Next you'll tell me there's not really a Smoke Monster or time travelling island? No alien invasion? No Paddy's Irish Pub? Or that Ryan Seacrest is straight?
