Page 14 - Pierce County Lawyer - July August 2024

JULY/AUGUST EDITORIAL
The theme for this year’s Convention is the Academy Awards®, so I propose that we offer some of our own “Legal Academy
Awards®" at the convention. These awards will not completely track the real Oscars1—we’ll have a Best Picture and then break down the Best Actor Awards into some different categories. I know some will disagree with my choices, feel free to do so. You’re as qualified as I am.2
Of the 550 Best Picture nominations since the Academy Awards began in 1929, there have been 15 or 20 movies that can be called “legal movies.”3 Of those nominated, three won Oscars: Chicago, Kramer v. Kramer, and A Man for All Seasons.4 The movies that won aren’t as “legal” as those that were nominated but didn’t win; that brings us to our first category:
Legal Pictures that were Nominated, but Did Not Win, Best Picture:
John Houseman—The Paper Chase Maximillian Schell—Judgment at Nuremberg Walter Matthau—The Fortune Cookie
The nominees for the next two awards are actors with an Oscar for a non-lawyer role who portrayed lawyers in a legal film (and didn’t get an Oscar for it).
Advocate Award—Best Performance as a Courtroom (trial or appellate) Lawyer:
James Stewart and George C. Scott—
Anatomy of a Murder
Charles Laughton—Witness for the Prosecution Jessica Lange—The Music Box
Anthony Hopkins—Amistad5
Spencer Tracy and Frederick March—
Inherit the Wind
Paul Newman—The Verdict Katherine Hepburn—Adam’s Rib6 Denzel Washington—Philadelphia
All except Newman and March were nominated for Oscars for their roles.
Office Lawyer Award—Best Performance as a Non-Courtroom Lawyer:
George Clooney—Michael Clayton Albert Finney—Erin Brokovich Groucho Marx—A Day at the Circus7 Robert Duvall—The Godfather 1 and 2 Susan Sarandon—The Client
Reese Witherspoon—Legally Blonde 2 (she was a lawyer by then)
Legal Movies have other roles besides lawyers, which brings us our next category...
Best Non-Lawyer—A Performance that Won an Oscar Nomination (and in all but two cases an Oscar) for Portraying a Non-Lawyer in a Legal Movie:
Woody Harrelson—The People v. Larry Flynt, Defendant
Julia Roberts—Erin Brokovich, Secretary, investigator, assistant
Marisa Tomei—My Cousin Vinnie, Expert Witness8
Meryl Streep—Kramer v. Kramer, Party
To Kill a Mockingbird Judgment at Nuremberg Philadelphia
12 Angry Men
A Few Good Men Paper Chase
There are so many legal films that should have been nominated, that it would take too much space to list them all. In addition to some that appear below in the other nominations, I’ll just mention And Justice for All, Compulsion, On the Basis of Sex, and Loving. Insert your own choices.
Now we move to our acting awards...
Oscar Winning Portrayals of Lawyers:
Gregory Peck—To Kill a Mockingbird Tilda Swinton—Michael Clayton Tom Hanks—Philadelphia
Paul Scofield—A Man for All Seasons
1 It’s me, so you knew there’d be footnotes, "Oscar®" has been synonymous with the Academy Award since at least 1934. I’ll use the term interchangeably. The official name for the statuette is “the Academy Award of Merit.” I’ll also use “movie” or “film” more or less at random.
2 I’m qualified because I’m a movie fan; I can quote the best lines from The Princess Bride, Casablanca and The Godfather movies. 3 There can be difficulties with the “legal movies” so I’ll use my own ideas, but you may disagree with me. The ABA had a list of 25 made up in 2008 and then added a few in 2019. Spotlight won the Best Picture Oscar in 2016, but it is not entirely a legal movie, it’s more like All the President’s Men or Front Page/His Girl Friday.
4 In the Best Picture award sweepstakes, legal movies as a genre trail Dramas, Musicals, and Biographies by a long run and are behind Westerns by one (if you count No Country For Old Men as a Western); but are ahead of Science Fiction and Shakespeare (unless you count Shakespeare In Love).
5
was also a lawyer in that movie, and that he was also The Lincoln Lawyer, the District Attorney in Bernie and a defense lawyer in A Time to Kill. Perhaps we should move him up to a full award list or give him an honorary degree.
6 We could include Spencer Tracy for this movie as well, but he’s already got a nomination. He was also nominated for a role as a judge in Judgment at Nuremberg.
7 Groucho Marx’s Oscar, awarded in 1974, was an honorary Oscar for lifetime achievement.
8 She did play a lawyer in The Lincoln Lawyer.
We probably should not forget that Matthew McConaughey
14 PIERCE COUNTY LAWYER | July/August 2024