Real-world lawyering involves mountains of paperwork, strict ethical codes, and hours of meticulous research. Television lawyering, apparently, involves none of that.
Here are my top picks for the worst (but spectacularly comical) legal minds to grace the small screen.
Barry Zuckerkorn – Arrested Development
Barry Zuckerkorn is the outside corporate counsel to The Bluth Company, a multinational real estate development company, and personal advisor to the Bluth family that owns it. Barry is a terrible lawyer in every respect. His advice is terrible. A husband and wife can both be arrested for the same crime, and “taking to the sea” is not a way to escape liability because actions in international waters can, in fact, be admitted in US courts (so holding a shareholder meeting on a boat will not avoid legal scrutiny).
He is routinely in legal trouble of his own (he nearly missed his client’s hearing because he had his own court date). He is terrible in court, going so far as to try to run away when he hears the number of crimes his client is charged with. Finally, he is unethical (lawyers should not round up a 25-minute call to an hour because of cell phone provider charges or because “it’s easier to bill”).
Uncle Jack – It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Uncle Jack is a professed estate lawyer who acts as the go-to for all the Paddy’s Pub gang’s legal needs. While he may be skilled in his area of practice, he is terrible in all other ways.
Far from a skilled negotiator, Uncle Jack “freezes up” when he sees the beautiful hands of opposing counsel, which leads to a far from favorable settlement in a divorce case. His courtroom skills are no better – from losing his fake hand during a trial gesture to his less than impressive opening statement (“Liam has a history of lying, Bill is a loving family man, he is innocent”). He can’t even accurately quote one of the most famous lines in trial history (“If the glove doesn’t fit, give up”). Finally, he engages in unethical advertising practices when he asks opposing counsel to put his hands over Uncle Jack’s hands, as if they were Uncle Jack’s hands, to take a picture “for the website.”
Lionel Hutz – The Simpsons
Lionel Hutz (a/k/a Miguel Sanchez) is Springfield’s most recognizable lawyer. His background is dubious at best as he has been known to change his name to escape consequences and claims to have graduated from Princeton School of Law (keep in mind that Princeton has not offered law degrees since 1852).
Most of his legal knowledge appears to have been gleaned from watching Matlock in a bar (while the sound wasn’t on, he probably got the gist of it, or so he thinks). The lack of legal education or knowledge beyond soundless Matlock episodes likely explains his lack of understanding of evidentiary rules (his rebuttal to an objection that “hearsay and conjecture … those are kinds of evidence” is not correct). He is evidently not well-regarded by the bench (understandably as to at least one judge who has had it out for Lionel since he “kinda ran over his dog” only replace the word “kinda” with “repeatedly” and the word “dog” with “son”).
Lionel is highly unethical. Setting aside his various criminal problems, Lionel engages in unethical advertising (“Works on Contingency? No, Money Down!”). At the same time, Lionel is clearly aware of the ethical rules that he flouts as he tells Homer, “the state forbids me from promising you a huge cash settlement, but just between you and me, I promise you a huge, cash, settlement”). Speaking of misleading advertising, Lionel also displays poor judgment in selecting cases as he tells Homer, “this is the most blatant case of false advertising since my suit against the movie, The Neverending Story.”
Honorable mentions:
Jimmy McGill a/k/a Saul Goodman – Better Call Saul/Breaking Bad
In many ways, Saul Goodman is a great lawyer. He demonstrates outside-the-box thinking, is quick on his feet, and is willing to go to great lengths for his clients. He even understands that a good result is often better for a client than striving for the unattainable perfect result (encapsulated by his personal maxim, “Perfection is the enemy of the perfectly adequate”). However, he takes all these skills and uses them for all sorts of evil, and nearly every part of his practice (down to his name) are ethical violations.
Charlie Kelly – It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Charlie Kelly is not really a lawyer, and he apparently has no legal training (when asked where he went to law school, Charlie pleads the 5th). However, he is a self-proclaimed expert in bird law (which “is not governed by reason”), and he is surprisingly accurate on that subject (it is illegal to own a hummingbird under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918, and while he misstates the word as “parrot-y” there is a concept of “parody” in copyright law). Although Charlie is terrible in his early legal battles (challenging licensed counsel to a duel when he feels “besmirched”) he does eventually prevail in the trial of the century, McPoyle v. McPoyle.
It takes a lot of work to be a good lawyer…but apparently, even more effort to be as bad as the esquires above. Happy to say I’m proud to be a part of a group where prime time ratings never influence our motives.