Question for the brain trust: Best courtroom depiction

[Kevin M.]

I need to show my middle school class how a courtroom functions. Opening statements, examination, cross examination, closing arguments. Should be one hour or less. Looking for the best example. 

It’s harder than you think. Perry Mason is unrealistic in nearly every episode. LA Law doesn’t show most trials complete. 

Kevin M. (RPCV)

[Adam Snavely]

Longtime listener first time caller. 

It may sound counter intuitive, but My Cousin Vinny is frequently used in law school and continuing legal education trainings. Same with Few Good Men. Obviously you’d need to edit it to get them down to the required run time.  I remember really enjoying the first season of Murder One, but it’s been a long time so I can’t comment on the realism anymore. 

Good luck. 

Adam J. Snavely
Attorney at Law

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[Doug Eastick]

I love this reply.   Thank you Adam, and welcome.

May I suggest Legally Blonde?  :)

More seriously, the only thing I've watched recently with courtrooms was the Netflix Lincoln Lawyer.    Some of that might cover your desired elements.

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[PGage]

Second Vinny. I’m not a lawyer, but used to work on a unit for people found incompetent to stand trial, and a lot of our job was to stage Mock Trials so they could learn and demonstrate sufficient understanding of court proceedings to be found competent. We found Vinny to be uniquely valuable, both because of its accuracy and its structure, which is basically teaching a novice lawyer how to conduct a trial.

Perry is not so much inaccurate (he is, but not as much as often claimed) but in the TV show he rarely goes to trial.  Most of what we see is a Preliminary Hearing, where judges have a lot of discretion to waive formal procedures, since there is no jury. So not a helpful teaching tool.

Law and Order could be useful, but you would probably need a knowledgeable attorney to pick and choose excerpts from several episodes to get useful examples of a whole trial.

Probably not appropriate for Middle School, but I like most of the court stuff on Goliath.

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[Melissa P]

I'm not going to be terribly helpful, but I admired the work in The Good Wife and The Good Fight.  

And kudos to those here who offered My Cousin Vinny and Murder One.

Not exactly an answer to your quest, but I greatly admire an episode of The Good Wife in which Alicia is assigned to the Public Defender's office.

[Kevin M.]

Thank you for the suggestions. I pulled some scenes from Murder One, from a first season LA Law episode (before they became a cartoon), and some courtroom scenes from Homicide: Life on the Street. I also added the opening scene from The Paper Chase where the teacher is so intimidating he makes his student throw up… while it is in law school and not a courtroom per se, it’s always good to prepare students for what is to come. 

Kevin M. (RPCV)

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