The 25 best movie and TV lawyers of all time
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A group of actors who play lawyers on TV — including Viola Davis, Sam Waterston and Julianna Margulies — is calling on real-life attorneys to "help safeguard" the presidential election.
Defense Attorney Mitch McDeere is targeted for execution by the Chicago Mob in retaliation for bringing down a profitable Mob-operated Memphis law firm ten years earlier. Stars: Josh Lucas, Callum Keith Rennie, Molly Parker, Juliette Lewis. Votes: 5,403
The trials and tribulations of criminal lawyer Jimmy McGill in the time before he established his strip-mall law office in Albuquerque, New Mexico as Saul Goodman. Stars: Bob Odenkirk, Rhea Seehorn, Jonathan Banks, Michael Mando. Votes: 403,961
Apr 19, 2019 · Andrea Bocelli. The world-famous singer loved music from a very early age but his parents had other plans for their son. To please his mom and dad, Bocelli studied law at the University of Pisa ...
Jack McCoy ("Law & Order") For 16 seasons, Jack McCoy presided over the "Order" part of the show, first as assistant district attorney and then district attorney.
Brigance (Matthew McConaughey) endures plenty (threats, burning crosses and his house set on fire) while defending a black man from a murder charge in front of an all-white jury, Yet Brigance stands tall throughout and is rewarded in the end. 5 of 25.
Annalise Keating ("How to Get Away with Murder") There might not be a more empowering fictional female attorney than Keating (showcased by Emmy-winner Viola Davis). A criminal defense attorney and law professor, no matter how bad things get (alcohol, murder) for and around Keating, she's usually up to the challenge.
Note: We can easily add Diane Lockhart (Christine Baranski) on this list, but we'll go with Florrick in the lead role, played superbly by Emmy winner Julianna Margulies. To say Alicia has been through a lot isn't really saying enough. She has a corrupt husband and a lover she can't make up her mind about. She's smart, sassy and a good mother who continues to get back up no matter how many times she's knocked down.
Now Dan Fielding (John Larroquette) was not a bad assistant DA in the Manhattan Municipal Court. However, he seemed more preoccupied with the ladies than the law, which considering the other characters surrounding him, did not make him too bad of a person.
Gomez Add ams ("The Addams Family") Many probably didn' t know that the patriarch of the eccentric and somewhat spooky "Addams Family" is actually an attorney by trade. However, we rarely, if ever, see him practice law. It was noted that he never won a case as a rather poor defense attorney, a fact Gomez ...
That's OK, because he's one exceptional lawyer. Though Rabb (David James Elliott) might be haunted by never really knowing his fighter-pilot father and his track record for love is pretty rough, he has great instincts as a litigator while being smart and cunning in the courtroom.
Order in the court! Rebel Wilson, Gerard Butler and more stars tried their hand at studying and practicing law before they made it big in Hollywood.
Gerard Butler. Before earning the role of King Leonidas of Sparta, Butler was the president of the law society at the University of Glasgow. After graduating with honors in 1992, the Scotsman secured a spot at a top law firm in Edinburgh until he finally decided to chase his Hollywood dreams. Credit: Shutterstock.
While some stars followed through on their extensive studies until the very end, others found the study a little too challenging. Rashida Jones had lofty ambitions of becoming a lawyer while she was a student at Harvard University, but admitted to The Independent several years later that she lost faith in the law during the infamous O.J. Simpson murder trial in the 1990s.
Steve Young. celeb-law-degrees-1. The Pro Football Hall of Famer earned his law degree at Brigham Young University, where he simultaneously played as the school's quarterback and broke 13 national college records, according to the school's athletic site.
He may have put his degree on the shelf for many years but the king of talk shows has finally found a reason to dust off his old law school books: Springer will star in his own court show called Judge Jerry starting fall 2019, according to Deadline. The daily, half-hour program will be taped in front of a live studio audience and will surely bring the drama.
Fans might be surprised to know that Wilson saw herself as either a lawyer or politician before she landed roles in hit movies like the Pitch Perfect franchise and Isn't It Romantic. The Australian actress graduated from the University of New South Wales in 2009 with a B.A. in theatre and performance studies and a Bachelor of Laws. By then, her mind was set on pursuing law, but after suffering from a bout of malaria on a trip to Africa, she hallucinated that she won an Oscar and knew from then on that acting was it for her, according to USA Today.
Deemed one of the greatest courtroom dramas of all time and based on the novel with the same title, Anatomy of a Murder follows Michigan lawyer Paul Biegler (played by James Stewart), who has his work cut out for him after agreeing to defend Lt. Manion (played by Ben Gazzarra), who murdered a local bar owner after learning he’s been accused of rape.
Gambini, played by Joe Pesci, does his best to defend his cousin and his cousin’s friend but makes a number of missteps along the way. Gambini’s fiancee, Mona Lisa, who is played by Marisa Tomei, ...
Philadelphia (1993) Directed by Jonathan Demme, Philadelphia tells the story of lawyer Andrew Beckett, who struggles to hide his homosexuality, as well as his HIV status, for fear that they will have a negative impact on his career at a prestigious Philadelphia law firm.
At first, Mick assumes that the case will be an easy, open-and-shut affair. He soon learns, though, that there’s more to it than meets the eye and that it’s connected with a previous case of his.
Trivia: Julia Roberts’ salary for her role as Erin Brockovich made her the first actress in Hollywood to earn more than $20 million.
Unlike most of the others on this list, these next few were famous before getting their law degrees. After getting his B.S. in Business Administration from UC Berkeley - and becoming president of the student body under the campaign slogan “Chunk for President” - the Goonies actor earned his law degree from the UCLA School of Law. He became an entertainment lawyer and founded the firm Cohen & Gardner.
5. Geraldo Rivera. A young Gerald Riviera (not Jerry Rivers, as the urban legend says) was one of the top five in his Brooklyn Law School class in 1969. As the lawyer for a Puerto Rican activist group called the Young Lords, Rivera caught the eye of an Eyewitness News exec who offered him a job, and his career in journalism began.
One of the funniest men in the history of comedy has a law degree from no less than Cambridge. But he didn’t leave the jury rolling in the aisles: Cleese never actually practiced. After meeting writing partner Graham Chapman at school, Cleese went on to co-found a little comedy troupe called Monty Python. 5.
15. Elizabeth Holloway Marston. Marston and her husband William Moulton Marston created the character Wonder Woman in the early ‘40s, but that was a far cry from her original career. After earning her B.A. in psychology from Mount Holyoke, Elizabeth went to Boston University for her LLB. She wanted to go to Harvard alongside her husband, but Harvard didn’t accept women at the time. It didn’t bother her in the end: “I finished the [Massachusetts Bar] exam in nothing flat and had to go out and sit on the stairs waiting for Bill Marston and another Harvard man to finish.”
11. Josh Saviano. Joining Jeff Cohen in the lawyer-slash-child-actor category is Josh Saviano, a.k.a. Kevin’s sidekick Paul Pfeiffer in The Wonder Years. After getting his B.A. at Yale, Saviano got his J.D. from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law and now practices in New York. Also: he is not Marilyn Manson.
13 & 14. Nina and Tim Zagat. The husband-and-wife team met when they were both attending Yale Law School. They were at a dinner party in 1979 when friends began discussing how unreliable a certain major newspaper’s restaurant reviews were. Tim suggested surveying a larger population of people on their foodie opinions instead of relying on the biases of one reviewer, and the Zagat Survey was born.
8. Jerry Springer. After getting his law degree from Northwestern in 1968, Springer got a job as a campaign aide to Robert Kennedy. After Kennedy was assassinated, Springer signed with a law firm in Cincinnati.