Photo: AMC TV

By Stewart Osborne

Spoilers abound. You have been warned.

We first met James MacGill, better known as Saul Goodman, in Breaking Bad, and his origin story has been explored (as far as the foundations go, at least) in the first season of Better Call Saul. If the ‘flash forwards’ are anything to go by, “Slippin’ Jimmy” ends up in witness protection, no doubt due to his involvement with Walter White, among other parties.

Not since Lionel Hutz of The Simpsons has the archetype of a sleazy yet loveable, fast talking, proverbial (or in Hutz’ case, literal) ambulance-chasing flimflam man with questionable qualifications to practice law been pulled off so brilliantly, and full credit to Bob Odenkirk on his portrayal of the character. It’s hard not to like him. The bus stop ads, the shockingly direct green screen advertisements which put major names in Australian public liability practice to shame with their brazenness, are all directly lifted from the U.S. legal industry. That’s not to say aggressive advertising (quite typically accompanied by commensurate aggressive billing) doesn’t happen in Australia, but I’ve seen how U.S. attorneys not averse to debasing themselves just a little go about spruiking their services in horribly put together TV ads.

Saul is entertaining. And it’s just about there that anything good about him can be said.

Criminal lawyers, despite what Saul Goodman would have you believe, are not conduits for one criminal to engage with others, or matchmakers as far as existing criminal enterprises or startups go. Walter White’s capacity to ‘disappear’ is facilitated by professional criminal with whom Saul maintains at least some kind of a non-client relationship. Saul acts as a middleman between Walter White, as a clandestine illicit drug manufacturer, and Gus Fring, a man with an industrial plant specifically geared to the commercial production of methylamphetamine. During the scene in the hotel in which Walter buys himself a gun with an obliterated serial number in a dingy hotel room, we learn the gun dealer and Walter were introduced via ‘the lawyer’. The same goes for Mike Ehrmantraut; another referral from Saul to Walter. Quite the one stop shop for a budding criminal. Forget the moral reprehensibility. How about the illegality of conspiring to commit a plethora of serious criminal offences in which Saul effectively involves himself?

Then there’s the money laundering. The vast, vast quantities of money laundering. The utter saturation of Saul’s involvement in the schemes used to launder money on behalf of the Whites is breathtaking, from buying businesses to sending money to third parties through fictitious inheritances. The sheer scale and quantity might be enough to convince a naïve audience that this is actually part, to at least some miniscule degree, of a good criminal lawyer’s job. In reality, no, it isn’t, and being disbarred is going to be the least of your problems if this is something in which you contemplate engaging.

We see the evolution of Saul from attempting to make his way into corporate law, working (poorly) as a public defender before getting involved with gangsters after a failed attempt at staging a traffic accident for compensation, and presumably going on to become the Saul we know from Breaking Bad. The conspiracy to stage a traffic accident for compensation money with a couple of kids who end up wishing they hadn’t gone along for the ride is bad enough. Along the way, he later procures the burglary of a client’s home, because ultimately, this was, to his mind, in the client’s best interest (and fit the story arc nicely). Let’s be clear here, in case it was missed initially – he procured an aggravated burglary undertaken actively with Mike in order to steal a substantial sum of money, in order to apparently get his client the best possible outcome. The ends thus justifying the means, we can all sleep better at the end of the show.

Yeah, nah. That’s not how it goes. Real life’s not like that, and the way both shows go about normalizing a litany of offences which would be bad enough being committed by any member of the public, much less an officer of the court, is almost worrying. The ends will not justify the means, no matter how you try to package it; you will be held to a higher standard than that nebulous “’reasonable person’ if you find yourself in court on a conspiracy charge of some flavour or another, and who knows – if you seek to emulate Saul, you too may find yourself working in a shopping mall in another state using a fake name, probably after a stint in prison and penniless, if you’re lucky enough to escape the agitated clients with whom you’ve become too closely involved when (not if) it all goes wrong.

By Georgia Briggs

To Kill a Mockingbird was one of the first books I ever really read. I had to analyse it for English class, and it has stuck with me ever since. Whether it influenced my choice to become a lawyer, I don’t know, but it certainly influenced how I choose to act as a person.

This novel, written by Harper Lee and published in 1960, follows the life of Jean Louise, better known as Scout, a 10-year-old girl living in Maycomb Country, in America’s South, in 1936. As we probably all know, but I’ll remind you anyway, this time in history sees a very distinct racial divide between white and black people. Blacks are segregated from whites at all costs, and work only as servants in the town.

Scout lives with her older brother, Jeremy (Jem), and her widowed father Atticus. They also have a maid, a black woman named Calpurnia, who is also a mother figure to Scout. The book is told through Scout’s eyes as she recounts her life in her small town.

What becomes the main focus of the book, amongst many other themes, is that Atticus Finch, as the town’s prominent lawyer, must defend a black man accused of raping a white woman. Atticus takes on the case knowing that the prevailing opinion at this time was that when a white person who accused a black person of a crime, the black person was guilty.  Therefore, though not specifically stated, the majority of the small county deemed a trial unnecessary. He was guilty, they all knew it.

Atticus believing that everyone deserves a fair trial, and every man deserves legal representation, did the right thing. He stood against the crowd, defending to the best of his ability, an essentially unwinnable case. Because it was the right thing to do.

This is always solidified in my mind through a chapter in the novel where Atticus leaves the children at home one night. Scout, curious as always and not one to follow the rules, walks into town in the dark to see where her father went. She finds Atticus perched on a chair, reading the paper, right in front of the jail entrance. He is waiting, in the dark, guarding his client, as he knows that men in the town will take it upon themselves to lynch (hang) the man accused if they get the opportunity. Atticus is the human barrier between one innocent man, with the wrong coloured skin, and a large mob of angry men, most of whom are Atticus’ friends, neighbours and peers. Atticus chooses to stand against his own people, puts his own life and reputation in the small town at risk, to defend someone, because it is the right thing to do.

Atticus Finch is the lawyer we all want to be. Even Wikipedia says Atticus is “the most enduring fictional image of racial heroism”. He is a hero, he is our humble, average, no cape needed, hero. And while our battles as lawyers may be different, whatever our fight is, we want it to be a strong and passionate one, one that leaves our soul and conscious sound.

Atticus embodies one of the most difficult issues for any person, perhaps more so for lawyers, where one must balance their own safety, morals and agenda against what is right and what is wrong. Not to get swept up in the controversy and follow what your peers say is the obvious choice, but to do what is the correct choice from your moral compass.

A line that I found interesting came from the movie The Judge. Robert Downey Jr, playing a suave defence attorney tells us “everyone wants Atticus Finch until you have a dead hooker in your hot tub”. What a person hiring a lawyer wants remains to be seen, but what a person who is a lawyer wants… They want to hold their head high and do what is right, feel they are fighting a good fight and go home at night knowing they tried their best, and they hopefully made a difference. Atticus is the embodiment of all of this.

Told through his daughter’s eyes, Atticus becomes a father figure to us all. As Scout learns lessons of life from her father, the reader learns them too. It is well written, amusing, but also deeply profound. Harper Lee is a fantastic author who shines a light on what it can mean to be a lawyer trying to do all that you can. That we are people who do our best to balance our beliefs, our job, our responsibilities, our family and our conscious to do what is right. Often this balance is tricky, but we do it as best we can, and Atticus Finch leads the way.

If you have yet to read To Kill a Mockingbird, as a lawyer, or as any person, I strongly urge you, if not demand, that you read this book. If you have already read it, read it again! You’ll turn back through the pages and feel the familiar warmth of the written words, the southern twang of the dialogue, and of course the wonderful characters.

Matthew McConaughey and Ryan Phillippe in Lions Gate Entertainment’s ‘The Lincoln Lawyer’ (Photo: Hollywood.com Staff/Syndicated by: Lions Gate Entertainment)

By Stewart Osborne

About 5 years back, a movie called The Lincoln Lawyer was released, based on one of a series of novels starring a then “still clawing his way back up” Matthew McConaughey. To give you a brief synopsis, it’s about a smooth-talking Californian criminal defence attorney who knows everyone, abuses every loophole, and ends up on the wrong end of a situation with a sneaky client who tries to corner him using professional privilege, and yet he miraculously slips the noose and wins the day in true Hollywood style.

Very stylish, very slick, and pretty vacuous (not filling in any Californian stereotypes there, are we?), in the first half hour, in no particular order, Haller’s being chauffeured around from court to court and arranging future ‘gifts’ to facilitate prisoner movements for corrections officers because his schedule’s so tight. He then uses creative methods for keeping clients remanded in custody and stalling hearings, pending receipt of cash stuffed envelopes from ‘motorcycle enthusiasts’, who he then admits he will creatively overcharge to justify his expenses… that’s just for starters. All of this sounds pretty legit as far as being a criminal lawyer goes, right?

Ha. NO!

Let’s talk about some seriously twisted and unrealistic expectations. Haller is not a cowboy, or a maverick. In the movie, he’s cool and slick. By real life standards, he’s actually an out an out criminal and a disgrace to the court of which he is an officer.

Let’s take a quick look at the sample of misconduct considered above.

Why’s Haller being chauffeured? Oh yes, his licence was suspended for his propensity towards drink driving. One would hope he’d informed the ethics committee about that.

Then it gets heavier and heavier… Stop and ask yourself, what’s the closest you’ve come in your life to ACTUALLLY bribing someone? Maybe overpaying a cover charge when a late night venue is full? Bribing a prison officer for any reason, such as to expedite movement of your client (regardless of the amount, a measly $100 in the movie) is a different thing entirely – that’s a fast track to needing a defence lawyer of your own.

Misleading the court, of which you are an officer and to whom you owe a duty first and foremost, as to the need to locate a material witness in order to get your client remanded, specifically to squeeze his motorcycle enthusiast mates for more money? Now you’re looking at contempt of court in addition to seeing your practicing certificate spontaneously combust.

When the aforesaid squeezed motorcycle enthusiasts effectively pull you over on the road, and you take an envelope loaded with cash after outright lying to them about your intentions as far as use of those funds go, without so much as an entry in the trust account books, or maybe even an AUSTRAC report about the suspiciously large amount of hard currency which your client’s associate, who is not gainfully employed, handed you, you’re no longer a criminal defence lawyer. You’re a criminal and a conman, and possibly looking at money laundering charges as well.

Later, in no particular order, we also see Haller buying illegal guns and brandishing them, convincing a client to act against his best interests to the extent that said client is imprisoned for life, using his bikie connections to assault and intimidate his now former client, and bribing officials using a third party (sensing a theme with the casual bribery in criminal law? NO! THERE ISN’T!) to get an early look at the discovery file. But in the end, justice prevails and all is right with the world.

All in a day’s work, right? NO! IT ISN’T!

If you found yourself nodding along with a ‘yes’, condoning pretty much any point in Haller’s day mentioned above, on the basis that ‘it’s only going to be a problem if I get caught’, it really is time to consider pursuing a new vocation, because you can expect to be making career killing oversteps, if not getting yourself struck off or even locked up, in pretty short order for pretty much any of the above. This movie is the first in a line of recent fictional portrayal of lawyers who are portrayed as pragmatic protagonist characters for whom the ends will ultimately justify the means. Take that attitude with you into practice, and you are doomed from the get go.

Stylish though it may be, and an extremely slick portrayal of a criminal defence attorney who just seems to know all the angles, this movie’s leading lawyer’s example isn’t just unrealistic, its utterly toxic.