Robert King

Best of Ethics Award 2022, Best Ethics TV Show: “The Good Fight”

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Ethics TV shows, once, long ago, a major segment of popular television fare, are an endangered species. When I last gave out this award six years ago, the winner was the zombie apocalypse AMC hit “The Walking Dead.” Eventually TWD itself became a zombie; if I had named a winner of the award in recent years, based on what I saw, it probably would have been old standby and previous champion “Blue Bloods” on CBS, or as I call it, “The Conflict of Interest Family.” To the great credit of Tom Selleck and the writers, it’s still a strong ethics show in its 13th season; brave too (imagine: in 2022, a pro-police drama about a devout Catholic family that meets for Sunday dinner every week!). But I’ve found—finally–a better one.

And if I had been more alert, I would have found it six years ago. The show is “The Good Fight,” a spin-off of “The Good Wife” which Ethics Alarms discussed frequently during its run. I was a bit jaded after “The Good Wife,” because, as good legal series often do if they go on too long, it began resorting to outlandish plot devices as new ideas became harder to come by. Maybe that’s why I was so late checking in on “The Good Fight.” The series picks up the story of Christine Baranski’s character in “The Good Wife,” and streams on Paramount Plus, which I only recently subscribed to. This is the show’s final season, its sixth, but I’m starting from the beginning.

If the next five season raised no ethics issues at all—an impossibility with ethics-obsessed creator-writers Robert and Michelle King in charge—“The Good Fight” would still be the smartest and most sophisticated legal ethics drama since “The Defenders.” You can watch it here.

There are a lot of legal dramas on streaming services right now: “The Lincoln Lawyer,” “The Firm” (based on the John Grisham novel and film, with Grisham producing), “Partner Track,” “Extraordinary Attorney Woo,” the now-completed “Better Call Saul,” and the extremely entertaining if over-the-top drama “Goliath,” starring Bill Bob Thornton as an alcoholic, depressive, idealistic litigator. If I had to recommend one over the rest, “The Good Fight” would be my choice.

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“The Good Wife” Ethics Addendum: Why Misrepresenting the Legal Profession’s Standards Does Real Harm

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Sure, it was a comedy, but how many people believe that Jim Carrey's compulsively lying lawyer was not that far from the truth?

A comment from reader Penn on my post about “The Good Wife’s” recent misrepresentation of legal ethics standards got me thinking, and what it got me thinking was that I was too easy on the show.

Penn asked why I waste my time watching programs that raise my blood pressure, and there are two answers. The first is what I wrote back: it’s not a bad show; in the past it has been a very good one, even from the legal ethics perspective. I have used several scenarios from episodes in seminars.

The second answer, which I didn’t mention in my response to Penn, is the more important one, however. Good show or not, millions of Americans get their information about the legal profession from the portrayal of lawyers and law on TV and in movies. From these fictional sources, they think they know that most lawyers are liars, that they allow their clients to lie, that they put witnesses on the stand who they know will lie under oath. The public thinks that lawyers abuse the law, don’t earn their fees, don’t give a damn about their clients (unless they are sleeping with them), switch sides routinely and confuse juries to release serial killers on more victims. Continue reading →