One of the biggest television newcomers of the year is a legal drama by the powerhouse writer Shonda Rhimes of Grey's Anatomy and Scandal fame. The drama centers around a law professor (played by Viola Davis) and five law students at a fictitious college, loosely based on UPenn, in the Philadelphia area. As someone who recently graduated from law school, this was an exciting proposition because law school is rarely captured in the television and movie mediums. Even when it is, it tends to be less about the reality of being in a state of intense stress and panic for three years and more about whatever drama the writers create to make law students seem more interesting.
So, as someone who watches and enjoys Scandal, I was excited to sit down and watch the first episode. My excitement was incredibly short lived. Within five minutes, I was so furious that I had to change the channel and attempt to watch the show another day. Since then, I have been able to make it through the pilot as well as the next two episodes. However, the viewing has become more of a hate-watching than anything else. To say I am disappointed is an understatement.
One of the glaring issues with the show is that there does not seem to be any lawyer helping the writers create a realistic world. Supposedly, there is a legal advisor, but it appears as if the writers either don't care about that person's expertise or it's not being given. In order to create shows in special environments, like law school, writers have to employ and take advise from experts with experience in those environments to make those shows real. After all, television is meant to mirror society and help people escape their lives by showing them how other people live. Friday Night Lights would have never been as popular if it didn't follow the rules of football and the intricacies of high school football in Texas. Breaking Bad would have been much less interesting if the writers didn't have an understanding of the illegal drug industry and how to actually cook meth. Mad Men would have failed if it could not accurately portray life as an advertiser in the 60s. It's this basic problem alone that makes How to Get Away With Murder unwatchable for anyone with experience in law. The characters aren't like real law students and the plot isn't like the life of a real law student, law professor, or attorney. The writers clearly have no semblance of what life is like as a law student, a professor, or as a lawyer, and they don't seem to care.
To be clear, my problems with the show aren't centered around little inaccuracies that are nit picky and don't detract from the quality of the show. The inaccuracies are core plot points and characteristics of main characters. As a writer, the first thing I was taught was to create a strong base reality in fact and build from that. This allows a writer to create real drama and connections to the audience because people can see themselves in the characters and their experiences. With How to Get Away With Murder, the inaccuracies create an alternate universe without having the show live in an alternate universe. Now, I have no problem with creating an alternative universe. Some of the greatest dramas have thrived in that environment. Shows like Doctor Who live in that kind of world, have huge followings, and are some of the best television series ever created. How to Get Away With Murder doesn't live in that kind of a world. It is presented to us as a show taking place in Philadelphia at an American law school. The show isn't supposed to live in a whole new world with its own rules. It's supposed to live in our world and, therefore, live by our rules. This is why the show is so infuriating.
There is no strong base reality. The show pretends to be something that it cannot be simply so that the show runner can create drama. The entire show is based on a premise that could not and would not exist today. It was also written by a seasoned writer who should know better, and fails to connect to the people it's supposed to portray. In fact, it tarnishes the reputations of the people it's supposed to portray. It makes lawyers look like scumbags who are willing to do anything to win their cases. Granted, there are some lawyers out there that exhibit those characteristics, but lawyers have a bad enough reputation as it is and many of them, especially today, take low-paying jobs in the public sector in order to affect change in the lives of the people that need help. So, with that being said, here are some of the reasons that you should stop watching How to Get Away With Murder.
1.1Ls are not confident.
The iconic scene from the show's trailer involves Viola Davis entering the first 1L criminal law class of the year so that she can deliver the show's titular line. It also involves the Socratic Method, the most dreadful teaching method ever created. The Socratic Method gave people nightmares and sent them out of class crying. So, I was a surprised to see students in their first law school class not only raising their hands, but standing up and reciting the facts of a reading with the clarity and poise of a seasoned lawyer. In my first 1L class, I remember the polar opposite scenario. Nobody was willing to raise their hand out of fear that they would be torn apart by the professor, nobody stood because they were too busy cowering, and the professor had to explain why we were incapable of answering her questions because we didn't know how to read case law yet. In fact, the first weeks of school are dedicated to teaching how to read judicial opinions.
1Ls, especially on their first day, don't know the readings well enough to give rehearsed speeches without even looking at their notes. Most of them are staring into their computer screens while messaging their friends on G-chat all the while hoping that the class goes by without being cold called because they didn't understand the reading assignment after the third time through.
2.1Ls don't get jobs litigating murder cases after their first week of class.
Nobody would hire one 1L to be in charge of cases after their first week, much less five 1Ls. 1Ls don't know the law. They literally just entered the legal field and have yet to learn all of the basic elements of the legal process. One of them hasn't heard of a directed verdict, a very basic Civil Procedure concept. He even runs across campus thinking that he's found the answer to his professor's problems (That's something that a 1L would actually do). 1Ls have to spend a month learning how to read condensed cases and a year learning how to brief them. They are not equipped to handle any responsibility that could affect the outcome of a person's murder trial, and no client would want their fate in the hands of a kid who just finished getting a B.A. from a liberal arts school.
3.A 1L won't catch something that an experienced law professor doesn't.
As I stated before, 1Ls don't know the law. They don't know how to make legal arguments and they don't know how to make strong defenses. They think they're clever, but are just naive and inexperienced. They also would never be able to discover crucial pieces of evidence that create defenses for clients that their experienced professors could not. The "he's a hunter" defense is a cliche. It's ridiculous to think that a seasoned law professor and prestigious attorney as well as two other attorneys wouldn't catch on to that. She and her two lawyers working for her didn't think to make sure that a witness wasn't colorblind when the color of a pill is a crucial element? That's preposterous.
4.Generally, a full-time professor doesn't have time to take on a caseload of murder trials.
Students pay a lot of money to go to law school and they expect their professors to be dedicated to their jobs. The show doesn't address the issue, but it appears as if Professor Keating is a full-time professor. Where is she getting this time to be a professor and take on high-profile murder cases? My full-time professors had to juggle preparations for classes, office hours, speaking engagements, journal advisor duties, and their own research and writing to keep their professorship. That doesn't even include the time that they spend in class. Professors that had jobs outside of their teaching obligations were known as adjunct professors and they only taught one class a week (These were upper-level courses. Not the basic 1L classes, which are usually taught by full-time professors with tenure). Professor Keating somehow has the time to balance a full-time professor job, a criminal defense attorney job where she advises her own students, an affair, social engagements, and time with her husband. I'm calling shenanigans.
5.Lawyers have a duty of confidentiality to their clients
This issue goes to the basic premise of the show. The entire first episode is dedicated to a competition between the students in Professor Keating's class for a job at her firm. She opens the class and reveals that her students were assigned to read the case file of a client she is currently representing. She also gives away her entire argument for a major murder case to a classroom of around 100 students. This flies in the face of every rule of professional responsibility that lawyers are required to abide. Most law schools require students to take an ethics course and every law student is required to pass an ethics exam called the MPRE (Multistate Professional Responsibility Examination) before they can be admitted to the state bar. One of the most important rules is that an attorney cannot reveal confidential information about a client's case (and sometimes about the client) without the informed, written consent of the client. Having a large class of students read your client's case file would violate this rule. Bringing your students to interview your client would violate this rule. Giving away your defense to someone who doesn't work for you would violate this rule. The consequences of violating a Rule of Professional Responsibility can be severe, including banning that person from the state bar, which can have repercussions on other state bar licenses. An experienced lawyer would know that. They also wouldn't repeat the mistake in the second episode.
6.1Ls have restrictions on how much they are allowed to work
Being a 1L is a stressful period in a person's life. You essentially go from 0 to 100 in three seconds and are expected to keep up with everybody else. My school and many others don't even allow 1Ls to start working until their second semester and law students are limited to 20 hours of work during the semester. Not only does it seem clear that these students are working more than 20 hours, they seem alarmingly well rested for people who are juggling Torts, Property, and Criminal Law while having a stressful job working on murder trials. Where are all of these drugs that these kids are doing?
7.Law students are taught case law
It isn't until the third episode of the show that Professor Keating even begins to teach American case law, the building block of a legal education. Yet, her students somehow know the steps to creating certain arguments and defenses (What is the first step in a brainwashing defense? I wasn't aware that there were steps). This is highly unusual because, up until that point, her students had only been given active cases that would not have included any legal precedent for them to gain the legal knowledge required to answer any of these questions.
8.Professor Keating's cases end too quickly
Remember how long it took for George Zimmerman's trial to begin? Criminal cases can take months or years to get to trial and can last weeks in the courtroom. They don't get wrapped up at the end of an episode in a little bow so that the professor can move on to a new case the next week and keep her drama fresh.
9.So many violations of professional conduct
The amount of things that would get these lawyers disbarred is incredible. You can't illegally obtain evidence, you can't lie in a courtroom to get illegally obtained evidence admitted, you can't create a fake attorney license to get into a prison to see a client that you don't represent, you can't claim to be someone that you aren't in order to get information from a witness' doctor, you can't call a witness to lie on the stand when you know that they will lie on the stand, and you can't coerce a witness' testimony. Those are just a few and Professor Keating is responsible for all of them. Supervising lawyers have to make reasonable efforts to ensure that their employee's conduct is compatible with the professional obligations of the lawyer (Rule 5.3 of the Pennsylvania Rules of Professional Conduct).
Keep in mind that these actions weren't made behind closed doors either. Any lawyer who knows about another lawyer's violation of the rules of professional conduct is required to report those violations or they are violating the rules of professional conduct as well. You can't use the excuse that you were just doing your job either. So, every admitted lawyer on that legal team would probably get disbarred for their behavior and at least half of the students would be banned from being able to practice. But, that's not a big deal to Shonda Rhimes now, is it? I can't imagine the opposition from the first episode not attempting to discover whether that document was in the original docket. When they discover that it wasn't, there would be a mistrial and the series would be pretty much over.
The students are also put into situations that involve illegal activity like digging through people's garbage while it's still in the curtilage of the home and are asked to get evidence without giving away who they are and who they represent. Just add that to the list of things that would keep these people from being able to practice law.
10.Basic aspects of being a law student are left out or misinterpreted.
a.Almost everyone has a laptop in law school, but there are shockingly few in the classroom.
b.In the first episode, the students only do their research through books in Keating's office. However, all of those books are available online through one of the legal databases that law students are have free subscriptions to use.
c.Somehow, a trophy gets students out of an exam even though most law school classes only have a final exam that usually counts for 80-100% of their grade.
d.Professors can't demand that a student skip classes to participate in a competition. The administration would have a field day and the amount of complaints that law students submit are vast and endless so you can imagine how quickly they would hear about it.
11.The graphic scenes would either not be allowed or are completely unacceptable.
Having a first year student get on a bed and have an alleged murderer simulate the alleged killing on that student is incredibly inappropriate. Having that same alleged murderer simulate killing a woman in the middle of a trial is also inappropriate and likely violates the sensibilities of the jury. I can't imagine many judges finding this to be an acceptable form of evidence.
12.The attire is inappropriate for court
Many judges have very strict requirements for what you are allowed to wear in court. Some judges ban specific colors and require suits to be only black or gray. So, Viola Davis wearing sleeveless tops would likely not be acceptable in a courtroom and she wouldn't be able to represent her client until she put on something more suitable for the judge.
13.The Law Review Party
Law Review is the most prestigious organization at any law school. Having a spot of the journal means that you've accomplished the goal of every law student: being in the top of your class. You don't apply to law review. There's no party trying to convince you to join like a fraternity or sorority. They choose you based on a writing competition and your grades.
14.Lack of Originality
Other than the legal reasons that I've given, there are some structural and creative reasons that this show is not worthy of your time. For starters, this show is a repackaging of works that other people have already done. The idea of having a classroom of criminal law students work for their professor's firm? That was the premise of Legally Blonde. A harsh professor who makes students feel stupid in front of their peers? Sounds a lot like The Paper Chase. The original aspect of the show is supposed to come from the idea that law students are learning how to cover up a murder that they committed. A bunch of students murdering their professor's husband may be an interesting idea for a movie, but not a hit television drama.
15.Smears its source material
This is the main reason that I wrote this article. If the show was inaccurate, but did no real harm then I don't think that I would care enough to say anything about it (at least not in a public forum). However, How to Get Away With Murder does do some harm. It hurts the reputation of law students and lawyers. The show portrays people that choose the legal path as conniving and heartless who break the rules to get ahead. The first episode involves Keating getting upset because her client was supposed to tell her "what bodies she needed to bury," which essentially implies that she was willing to destroy evidence (a "serious offense" to anyone who went to law school or watched Arrested Development). It also involves lying and seduction to illegally obtain evidence that would not have been admissible without lying to a court to get that evidence admitted.
This behavior is not my experience. Most people that I know that got in the legal field did it to affect positive change in the world and do it the right way. Granted, I know plenty of people who want to work in tax law or intellectual property and do transactional work that will help the rich get richer. I have more friends, however, that want to be a part of a legal field that gives aid to those who really need it. I have friends fighting for LGBT rights, the poor, abused children, animal rights, and pretty much every underrepresented class of people. I don't know anyone who wants to become or has become the type of lawyer that lies and cheats their way through their job. I don't know anyone who went into the legal field to prove that they're better than anyone else and to take people down in the process. I know a lot of earnest people who genuinely believe that the way to affect necessary change is to work within the system and change it from the inside. This is the element that I think is really lost in How to Get Away With Murder and that is very disappointing. If you're going to create a show or any work of art that is meant to portray a group of people, then you should portray them as close to reality as you possibly can. In this, How to Get Away With Murder fails both the people that it tries to portray and its audience because it takes away the good and accentuates the horrible minority. If you're going to take anything away from this, I hope you take away the understanding that the people that you see in this show do not represent the profession that they are portraying. If you watch the show, watch it because you think it's entertaining and take it with a grain of salt. In the end, that's all that I can ask of anyone.
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