The Seamless Web: A Blog on Law, Popular Culture and Related Issues

Law & Order To Return To the UK

Law & Order UK is returning to British tv screens in 2010. The show is part of the Dick Wolf stable of L&O franchises. Read more here.

Will We See Ally Mc Beal on DVD After All?

Amazon is taking pre-orders for the first season of Ally McBeal. It seems those pesky music licensing issues might have been solved. Note that Amazon is also taking orders for the full set of Ally, region 2, but the U.S. is region 1, so those discs are not playable on garden variety U.S. equipment.

Frolics and Detours

From the Blog of Legal Times: coverage of the Battle of the Law Firms Bands here.

Ah...Perry Mason

The latest set of Perry Mason DVDs is out (Volume 4 season 1) and as usual, they're a great deal of fun. Perry (Raymond Burr) and his colleagues Della Street (Barbara Hale) and Paul Drake (William Hopper) solve mysteries a plenty for Perry's clients. While the question is not whether Perry's clients are guilty (with one exception, in this batch the answer is always "no"), it's who actually did the deed. Perry is never faced with having to face representing a guilty client. In the one ugly case represented in this set in which the client is guilty, that individual admits his guilt in the case and in another, and Perry is "off the hook." If this series stands for anything, it stands for justice.

As usual, each episode has its iconic moments: the guilty individual admits guilt, usually in the courtroom, either on the stand, or elsewhere, because of Perry's steeltrap mind and questioning. The D.A., notably not Hamilton Burger (William Talman) in these episodes, but his associates (maybe he's tired of having to lose personally to Perry?) tries hard to put on a good case but always has a losing cause. The police, represented by the wonderful Ray Collins, do their investigation and arrest Perry's client and then Ray, playing Lt. Tragg, takes the stand and answers honestly and without bias. One wonders if sometimes Tragg wishes he could work for the Drake Detective Agency, if only to be on the winning side in a Perry Mason case. Still, when Mason's not at the defense table, he and Burger probably do all right.

Ultimately, the series provides lasting entertainment because of its message. Perry and his friends, Burger, Tragg, and the judges (some of whom appear several times throughout) represent the best of the legal system. They work hard to make certain that the right person is convicted. Even when Perry tries his "tricks" as the prosecution often says, the DA will often also mention that he (and it's always a "he") has no objection as long as justice is served. He's interested in justice, not in getting a conviction, he points out. That's as it should be. For his part, Perry tries his "tricks" in the interests of his clients. He may send a woman who looks like his client out to test the memory of a witness, but he never actually says they are the same person. The point is not to lie. The point is to test the limits of the system. Erle Stanley Gardner knew what he was doing and so did the creators of this series.

For more about Perry Mason, see Francis Nevins' essay about the show in the new book published by the ABA, Lawyers in Your Living Room! (full disclosure: my essay on the show Damages is also in this publication).

Poisoning the Field

What a great idea for a law review article. David S. Caudill, Villanova University School of Law, has published "Arsenic and Old Chemistry: Images of Mad Alchemists, Experts Attacking Experts, and the Crisis in Forensic Science," in volume 15 of Boston University Journal of Science and Technology Law (2009). Here is the abstract. 

Drawing on research into the use of experts in early 19th-century criminal trials, the image of mad alchemists in popular culture representations of science, and the distinction between empirical and contingent "interpretive repertoires" in the discourse of scientific controversies, this article explores the controversy over arsenic-detection technologies prior to the Marsh test. In addition to noting the predictable criticism of incompetent expertise in the service of law, this article highlights implied accusations of hubris and amorality on the part of over-confident experts, both in the early 19th-century and in today's crisis of forensic science.

Download the article from SSRN here.

What Not To Wear

Some federal judges are not happy. The National Law Journal ran this article about jurists who complain that more attorneys are showing up in the courtroom ill-attired, wearing short skirts, work out clothes, and--well--garb that's not law-worthy. And the judges can't say anything about it to the legal eagles because it might be considered ex parte communication. They suggest that law firm partners say something to these young attorneys, but many partners are reluctant. The back up plan is law schools--one would presume they mean career services staff and (maybe) law professors. Well, we do suggest, off and on, to students when they're within earshot, that they might like to spruce up their wardrobes, but of course, students don't have a lot of money when they're in school, and they don't always listen to us on that subject. After all, many of us tend to be, ahem, older....But we'll keep trying.

New Law Shows On Tap For Fall

From FindLaw's blog Greedy Associates, a post about new lawyer dramas for fall.

CBS Legal Drama Stars Julianna Margulies

CBS has scheduled a new legal drama for next fall: The Good Wife, starring Julianna Margulies (late of "Canterbury's Law") as an attorney back in the work force after her husband is sentenced to prison.

Gender, Copyright, and Filk Literature

Melissa L. Tatum, University of Arizona College of Law, Robert E. Spoo, University of Tulsa College of Law, and Benjamin Pope, University of Arizona, have published Does Gender Influence Attitudes toward Copyright in the Filk Community? as Arizona Legal Studies Discussion Paper No. 09-21. Here is the abstract.      

Over the past few decades, the filk community has expanded from a small group of science fiction convention-goers who occupied unused convention rooms during the late night hours to a community large enough to organize several dedicated filk conventions each year, a Hall of Fame, and an annual awards ceremony. While many filk songs are original lyrics set to original music, many more filk songs consist of lyrics written to existing music and/or lyrics based on characters/worlds created by other people. These practices potentially create problems in light of existing intellectual property law. In this paper, we explore those issues and whether a filker's gender influences his or her attitude towards intellectual property law. After setting out a basic explanation of filk and the intellectual property issues, the article details the various statistical results generated from the databases we built (one objective and one subjective) and draws some conclusions about gender and filk.

Download the paper from SSRN here.

NBC Nixes Two Legal Dramas For Next Year

Apparently neither David E. Kelley nor Dick Wolf will have his new series on the air come next year. Mr. Kelley had come up with a legal drama called Legally Mad; it was to star the popular Kristen Chenoweth and was slated for a mid-season slot. Mr. Wolf's new drama, Lost & Found, was also a mid-season replacement series. Both were offered to NBC. Mr. Wolf's series may turn up on another network. NBC now owes Mr. Kelley a sizable payment for its refusal to pick up Legally Mad. One wonders why the network passed on the shows--perhaps too much like prior products? But Hollywood like a sure thing....Here's a little more from the Hollywood Reporter and from Variety.