Inspiring Lawyer Movies: Philadelphia

Imagine if a Yoda-like creature of Lawyerly wisdom lived in each and every law school library.  

"Young Skywalker-Law-Student, write a good outline, you must."

Old, decrepit, and a mystical provider of answers in times of need, Law School Yoda would dwell between the Law Review volumes no one ever reads.  I imagine him sitting in full-lotus position on a stack of dusty Tax Law pages, meditating next to a single candle and a Buddha statue.  The scene would have all the grainy charm of an early-nineties movie, right down to the obvious Animatronic Jim Hensen puppetry of our Law School Yoda.  He would blink awkwardly, mechanically.  When he looks at you from the soft-lit nest of printed pages, cue the theme rising in the background, with all the tinkering audio-baubles of eighties childhood magic.  Think of the scene when Atreyu meets Falcor, or when the Goonies discover the pirate ship.  

"Why, Atreyu, why do seek happiness from grades and jobs from OCI when you know better?"

Disgruntled and frustrated law students would wander the stacks, seeking out wisdom and whimsy in their times of desperation.  Times when coffee isn't enough motivation for that all-nighter.  Times when loan debt, low job prospects, or systemic and fundamental unfairness seem too great to bear.  They would find him in the eerie post-midnight hours of finals, or the wee hours of the morning before graded briefs or appellate arguments.  

I never found a Law Library Yoda.  Instead, I had two things when coffee just wasn't enough to keep going: 1) a fabulous group of friends from my law school year and 2) my favorite lawyer movies.


I love lawyer movies.  Not because they are an accurate reflection of real life, but because they trigger the dreams and ideals of a younger me.  They capture moments and memories of when I saw the potential of what a lawyer could be.  When I had merely a sketch of what good could be done when one dons the lawyerly suit and attaché case.  (Or if you want to get governmental wid' it NA NA NA NA NA NA NA...as Rip Torn put it to Will Smith in Men in Black, "the last suit you'll ever wear.")


There are plenty of real-life examples of inspiring lawyering; warm-blooded, defined, precedent-setting individuals and cases that continually inspire and motivate.  All are surely examples that the hypothetical Law School Yoda would point to with his wrinkly green finger.

Brown v Board (school desegregation) is a bread-and-butter example of lawyers being change-makers.

But some days, give me fiction.  Give me some un-reality for a few hours.  And since I'm taking time away from studying, make it good.  

MUST-WATCH LAWYER MOVIES: PHILADELPHIA

(1993, TriStar Pictures, directed by Jonathon Demme.)

Tom Hanks.  Denzel Washington.  The AIDS controversy.  Need I say more?  Probably not, but I will.  This 1993 courtroom drama casts Tom Hanks as Andrew Beckett, the central character in the recreation of a real-life pioneering AIDS discrimination case from 1987.  Beckett, a gay attorney working for a big Philadelphia law firm, gets maliciously fired after a senior partner notices a sore on his face.  The sore, of course, is heavily associated as symptomatic of the deadly and then-mysterious AIDS virus.  A brief for Beckett's case goes missing just before a statute of limitations deadline but miraculously found - just in time to save the firm's case but to still frame Beckett for incompetence.

In 1987, people knew next to nothing about AIDS, how it was contracted, how it spread, or how to deal with people diagnosed with the incurable disease.  AIDS was a death sentence.  A threat not yet contained or understood.  Because the virus is transmitted through blood or other bodily fluids, it spread like wildfire among drug users and one isolated sexual community in particular: gay white males.  In a few short years, people came to primarily associate AIDS with intravenous drug users and the white male homosexual community.  1987 was wrapped up in the myth of AIDS as the "gay white man's disease." 

The film carefully and agonizingly showcases the powerful stigma evoked by this myth through its unrelenting attention to the most simplistic details of Beckett's experience.  This begins with Beckett struggling to find an attorney willing to even take on an AIDS patient as a client. Enter Denzel Washington's character Joe Miller, once-opposing counsel of Beckett who hung his own shingle to chase ambulances.  Miller meets with Beckett in his office and is - at first - cordial and relaxed in his approach to a potential client.  When Beckett reveals his diagnosis, everything changes.  

Miller glances nervously at everything Beckett touches.  He shuts down and is suddenly reluctant to talk in depth about Beckett's potential case.  After Beckett leaves, he literally runs to his secretary and demands an appointment with his doctor to clarify how AIDS spreads.  Miller, for all intents and purposes, freaks out.

Months later, the turning point between Beckett and Miller happens in a local law library.  A white man walks by with a look of utmost disdain at the idea of a black man (Miller) being in a law library.  Miller glares back defiantly.  Moments later, Miller notices Beckett researching at a common table.  A  librarian comes to Beckett and loudly announces, "WHY YES, there IS a section on HIV-related discrimination!!"  Everyone in earshot looks at Beckett in horror.  This, ahem, librarian (I can't think of something kind to call this...argh...librarian...so we'll call him just that)

then asks Beckett if he would "be more comfortable in a private study room."  Beckett says no.  Librarian stands there.  And...stands there.  He asks Beckett again: "sir, are you SURE you wouldn't be more comfortable in a private study room?"  Then, one of my all-time favorite Tom Hanks moments.  Beckett looks this librarian straight in the face and asks, "No...would YOU be more comfortable?"  After witnessing this exchange arranged parallel to Miller's own passing moment of discrimination, Miller comes over to Beckett's table and begins discussing the substance of his case.  Miller and Beckett become attorney-client.  Miller and Beckett go to trial.  Miller and Beckett make history.

One of my favorite moments in this movie, aside from the heart-rending opera scene, is when a dying Beckett explains to the jury why he loves the law in front of the big firm honchos who stole his career and impugned his reputation:

Suddenly, after my short jaunt into fiction-lawyer-world, I remember how many good reasons there are to be a lawyer.  How the possibilities of what you can do with your license are only as limited as your own mind.  How you can define "lawyer" any way you please, with your actions and capacity for doing right.  

I remember that coffee is enough.  I turn back to the books and cover letters and resumes and welcome the coming hours.  There it is!  That resolve to keep pushing into the wee hours.