When Harry Met Perry and Larry: Criminal Defense Lawyers on Television

Abstract

Most of what people know (or think they know) about law, lawyers, and the legal system — as well as many other subjects of which they have little personal knowledge — is learned in television school. Two different theories explain the impact of pop cultural sources on consumers — the cultivation and viewer response approaches. Both theories have strong explanatory powers, but describe different conditions of consumption. This article describes the numerous television shows involving heroic criminal defense lawyer protagonists, starting with Perry Mason and The Defenders and continuing to the present with dramas like Harry’s Law. These shows probably affect the public perception of criminal defense lawyers in a favorable way (contrary to the distrust of lawyers held by the vast majority of the general public). It would be interesting to learn whether viewers take seriously the positive message about criminal defense conveyed by these shows, whether viewers reject this portrayal and view defense lawyers as slimy, or whether viewers enjoy the shows and pay little or no attention to the message. A well-conducted viewer response study could furnish an answer to this question.