The Gazette 1996

GAZETTE

W A

JUNE 1996

Tales of Hoffman

Today's Lawyers on TV

Who killed 'Goldilocks'? Which of her

many lovers brutally strangled underage

beauty

Jennifer Costello

? Was it the self-

indulgent, cocaine-addicted TV and movie

star

Neil Avadonl

Or was it suave but

sinister multimillionaire

Richard Crossl

These were among the questions posed,

for Irish lawyers among other viewers,

during the twenty two episodes of

Steve

Bochco's

hit series 'Murder One'. The

series recently seemed to be on our TV

screens almost every night of the week as

it was shown simultaneously by RTE 1,

BBC 2 and Sky 1.

Bochco

had reproduced

in a legal drama the huge success he

enjoyed with his police series 'NYPD

Blue' and the classic 'Hill Street Blues'.

First

Richard Cross

is charged with the

murder but successfully defended by Los

I Angeles' top defence lawyer

Ted Hoffman.

Neil Avadon

defended by the formidable Hoffman - he

of the brilliant legal mind, fierce devotion

to justice and Theo Kojak hairstyle.

'Murder One' is a very long way from

Perry Mason and even farther from

'Rumpole of the Bailey'. It is in fact much

closer to the real-life trial last year in the

same Los Angeles courthouse of another

celebrity defendant, a certain

Mr.

Simpson.

Indeed, aspects of 'Murder One'

such as the psychology of the tortuous

| jury selection process, the plot twists of

the trial and the all-pervasive media frenzy

are all the more credible in the light of the

Simpson case.

The dividing line between reality and

fiction, insofar as one appears to exist in

such cases, became even more blurred

with

Ted Hoffman

being interviewed

about the

Jennifer Costello

case on CNN 's

Í 'Larry King Show' with

Larry King

being

played by, well,

Larry Kingl

In the

Simpson case also,

Marsha Clark, Johnnie

Cochran

and

F. Lee Bailey

became

celebrities in their own rights.

How different, we may think as Irish

Lawyers, from the home life of our own

dear profession. Not for us the drama,

1 money, lifestyle and glamour of 'Murder

One'. I mean, I ask you. How frequently

1 does it happen in Ireland that the DPP in

Daniel Benzali as Murder One's brilliant

defence lawyer Ted Hoffman.

the course of a trial makes application to a

judge to recuse herself on the basis that

she had once slept with counsel for

the defence?

And why is it always criminal law which

forms the backdrop for legal drama on

! TV? Why doesn't RTE make a true-to-life

! series about a conveyancing or probate

I practitioner? Why is murder as a dramatic

theme always preferred to the transfer of

unregistered land or the administration of

intestate estates?

After all, the 1970s thriller 'Body Heat',

with

William Hurt

and

Kathleen Turner,

contained a key plot twist based on the

rule against perpetuities. On the other

hand, it must be admitted that overall

'Body Heat' was very much more

concerned with murder than with the finer

points of succession law.

More seriously, however, it is possible that

the screening of American lawyer TV

series may have a real effect on the lives of

! lawyers in Ireland? Two of the most

unshakeably persistent myths about the

lives of Irish lawyers are that we all make

lots of money and that the work we are

engaged in is glamorous. The wealth of the

American legal profession is probably

| accurately depicted in American TV

! series. American lawyers are very much

richer on average than their counterparts in

| Ireland, even having made all necessary

adjustments for the different standards of

wealth of the two countries.

The glamour of life as a lawyer as

depicted in 'Murder One', together with

earlier series such as 'LA Law' and 'Law

& Order', is particularly striking.

Television tends to glamorize all that it

touches. No doubt the great majority of

legal work is very mundane and

unglamorous in America as it is in

Ireland. However, that fact is certainly

not suggested to television viewers,

whether American or Irish, of these

programmes. While it may be presumed

that no viewer in Ireland is so utterly

naive as to think the life of lawyers as

projected in such U.S. TV series

closely

resembles that of lawyers in Ireland, there

must be a real possibility that at some

conscious or unconscious level images are

reinforced in Ireland of a legal

career being almost invariably well

remunerated and exciting.

If this thesis is correct, then it may

contribute to the almost irrational desire of

so many young people in this country to

become solicitors or barristers, thereby

flying in the face of evidence that poorly

remunerated and very mundane work is all

j that will ultimately be available for a great

many of them.

If it is true, on the other hand, that even an

; American TV drama series about lawyers

can, at some level, influence public

perceptions of the legal profession in

| Ireland, then there could be worse images

than that of the fearsome, though folli-

cally-challenged,

Ted Hoffman.

Wealthy

and glamorous he and the other lawyers in

'Murder One' certainly are. The strict ethi-

cal code and total commitment to justice

for his client of the

Ted Hoffman

character, however, may reinforce an

I image of the integrity of Irish lawyers

which can never receive too much

emphasis.

When the killer of 'Goldilocks',

Jennifer

Costello,

was finally brought to justice, of

a kind, it was clear that the key figure in

ensuring that justice was done was

defence lawyer

Ted Hoffman.

At least that

part of the TV lawyer's image is one

which we can welcome. Way to go Ted.

Ken Murphy

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