Law and Popular Culture: A Course Book (Politics, Media, and Popular Culture)

Rating:
Summary: An Intellectual Course Book
Review: Review of "Law and Popular Culture: A Course Book (Politics, Media, and Popular Culture)"
Michael Asimow; Shannon Mader
273 pp. with index;
New York, Peter Lang; August 2, 2004
ISBN 0820458155

In the last fifteen years there has been a proliferation of courses in law schools dealing with law and lawyers and their place in popular culture as defined primarily by motion pictures and television programming.

Last year, a colleague of mine at the Catholic University School of Law and I began to put together a film course focusing on Hollywood''s view of Lawyers and the lawyering process. We knew that there were law review articles that discussed some of the films we had chosen for the class but not all. Moreover, we could not find a good text that discussed the overarching themes of the lawyer''s place in the culture and how lay people viewed individual lawyers and their work.

I called Michael Asimov at UCLA School of Law, who I knew to be one of the gurus in the law and popular culture movement and co-author of Reel Justice, to see if he was aware of a suitable text. I had come to the right place because Mike and a colleague, Shannon Mader, had just completed the manuscript of Law and Popular Culture: A Course Book and he was willing to let me use the book in manuscript form.

The book was perfect for our needs. While we did not assign readings from every chapter, we leaned heavily on material that provided a strong rationale for the course, discussed legal education in a way that gave new insights to our students regarding what they were doing in law school and how they will relate to society and presented overarching themes tying together and analyzing particular movie genres such as lawyers as villains (chapter 4); unethical law firms (chapter 13) and lawyers as vehicles for social messages (chapter 3). Helpfully, the authors intersperse real world relevant information and observations in boxes throughout the text.

This work provided the intellectual backbone for our course and encouraged the students to view the chosen films and the legal profession in the broader context of our society and culture. The authors can take a bow for their contribution to the understanding of law, lawyers and lawyering. I recommend this text to any instructor teaching a course involving legal films or television series involving attorneys.

Harvey L. Zuckman
Ordinary Professor and
Former Director, Institute for
Communications Law Studies
Columbus School of Law
The Catholic University of America
LL.B. NYU School of Law, 1959
A.B. University of Southern California, 1956