Picturing Justice, the On-Line Journal of Law and Popular Culture



Christine Corcos

 

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The series overtly poses some interesting questions about the possibility of reconciling law and justice, but it does so from the point of view of religion, philosophy, and ethics rather than law. Of course it is not the first to do so, nor in its trite presentation of good and evil is it particularly deft in its presentation.


Feature article

JUST CAUSE

by Christine Alice Corcos


Pax TV, one of the family networks that specializes in feel good shows, has launched as part of its Sunday lineup Just Cause, a "legal drama"featuring an innocent ex-con who earns her law degree from an "Internet law school" and badgers an uptight, conservative and conventional Harvard alum and name partner at a San Francisco law firm into hiring her as a paralegal and helping her seek a pardon from the governor. Have you read enough clichés yet? The show actually airs on the WTV (Women's Television Network) which suggests that while television may be anti lawyer it isn't anti woman lawyer. Well, perhaps.

The show's premise is that Alexandra De Monaco (played by perky newcomer Elizabeth, or Lisa, Lackey) was framed by her sleazy insurance company lawyer husband who then absconded with five million dollars and her daughter. Even after five years of wrongful incarceration, Alex is still perky about life and the legal system, since she attended law school over the 'net for five years and graduated "at the top of her class." She is such a good jailhouse lawyer in fact that she helps out both the other prisoners and the guards. In gratitude, one other con gives her a cross, which she wears, quite prominently, in every episode.

Released on parole, Alex sets off perkily through San Francisco on a search for a job. Her parole officer, a non-perky sort, finds her a job with a cleaning service (this features prominently later in the two hour pilot episode) but she has bigger plans. She approaches name partner Hamilton Whitney III (Richard Thomas) for assistance with clearing her name and eventually convinces him to hire her in a kind of Erin Brockovich position (in which she mimics Brockovich's tenacity and smarts, though not her dress or language). Alex then proceeds to uncover the truth about the death of a corporate officer who intended to blow the whistle on some shady dealings at his firm (the name Enron drifts through the dialogue), fend off initial hostility from one of the senior female lawyers (an Asian-American!) and attentions from both one of the senior male lawyers and the defendant corporation's sleazy counsel, and break through Whitney's reserve by taking him to a diner at the airport (You go, girl!)

Throughout, she obeys only those rules set out by the parole board, cheerfully ignoring what Whitney instructs her to do. She breaks into the defendant corporation's offices with the assistance of her friends from the cleaning crew and catches employees shredding documents that should have been turned over during discovery. She races into the courtroom at the last minute to present the judge with an incriminating memo written by the deceased corporate officer.

She is the epitome of the renegade hero who justifies ignoring those rules that get between her and what she considers to be justice. This notion has been attractive in fiction, film and history for years, but it makes a mockery of the law. Alex insists she wants to be a lawyer, but only for those folks she considers as innocent as herself, and apparently she is the decision maker with regard to innocence.
Apparently, Whitney has no trouble buying into Alex's crusade to better mankind and right the wrongs of the universe. In the second episode, Human Trials, Alex discovers that a drug company has been illegally using human subjects in clinical trials for a new medication. She agrees to help one of the victims. At the same time the company's parent corporation approaches Whitney offering to hire his firm to handle some extensive and lucrative deals. Their offer is intended to prevent Whitney and his colleagues from taking the victim's case, or secondarily from using information discovered through its representation of the parent corporation against the drug company.
Through a series of convoluted and confusing discussions the show presents viewers with the conflict of interest dilemma, once again casting the legal profession as a whole as the culprit which has created ethical rules of conduct that prevent victims from getting justice. How does Whitney get around the problem? He allows Alex to take the corporation's file from the office and arranges to have the police tipped off that she has cocaine in her vehicle. Of course she does not, but the district attorney conveniently seizes the files and reads them, revealing the depth of the corporation's evil intent. The episode ends happily with the victim making good progress toward recovery, the evil corporation in hot water and Alex ever more securely on the road to possible bar admission.

The show never suggests the possibility that, if a conflict exists, that another, equally competent, firm could handle the victim's case. Such a firm would certainly eventually discover the problem with the drug trials, since while Alex may be bound by ethical rules, the other non-lawyers involved in the case who are not employees of the firm are not. Nor does it explain why, even if Whitney cannot be charged with releasing private information about his client (the corporation) Alex cannot. She has, after all, acted directly in contravention of the rules binding her firm, and the rules that would bind her in any case were she an attorney.

But the law is not ultimately the subject of Just Cause. The series overtly poses some interesting questions about the possibility of reconciling law and justice, but it does so from the point of view of religion, philosophy, and ethics rather than law. Of course it is not the first to do so, nor in its trite presentation of good and evil is it particularly deft in its presentation. The quite obvious symbolic casting of John-Boy Walton as the head of the law firm and the extremely pretty and lively actress who plays the heroine is intended to draw the viewer into the notion that the law can and should be used in the service of good, and that good is something we all agree on. What the show does not do is consider whether a law firm that takes only those clients that clearly fall on the side of the angels will stay solvent. That would be an interesting ethical dilemma for the show to consider.

But Just Cause is really a fantasy about the battle between good and evil, not primarily a legal drama. It is a morality play, with the courtroom as the stage. Since we know that bad guys often get off and good guys sometimes are convicted, the law is an excuse to allow the writers to explore larger issues of natural law and higher morality and ethics. The unspoken message is that the law is amoral and that some lawyers have no ethics, not a particularly original notion. If this show succeeds it will be on the strength of its attractive stars and its simple moral message, not because of any originality in its concept, writing, or presentation. It seems determined to miss a wonderful opportunity to explore more deeply the role of religion and ethics in the life of the lawyer and the law, the opportunity that a series like The Practice uses to great advantage. It is, frankly, Lawyers Lite.

Posted December 5, 2002

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