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Books and Articles on Specific Films and Television Shows

Films and television shows that feature or highlight the work of women attorneys are still relatively rare, although women attorney and judges make fleeting appearances in a number of films as far back as the teens and twenties.

The Accused.

• Carr, Jay, Creating Fiction That's Based on Fact, Boston Globe, February 5, 1989, Arts & Film Section, at 73.
• Fleck, Patrice, The Silencing of Women in the Hollywood "Feminist" Film: The Accused, 9 Post Script 49 (Summer 1990).
• Johnson, Brian D., The Reality of Rape, Maclean's, October 24, 1988, at 60.
• Toby, Jackson, Should Film Makers Never Choose Myth Over Fact? L. A. Times, December 18, 1988, Part 5, at 5.
• Trott, William C., Rape Movie Backlash, (UPI, September 10, 1988, PM Cycle).

Adam's Rib.

• Cavell, Stanley, Pursuits of Happiness (1981), particularly pp. 193-199.
• Corcos, Christine A., Legal Fictions: Media Re-creations and Interpretations of Law and Justice , 25 U. Ark. L. Rev. 503 (2003).
• Corcos, Christine A., "We Don't WANT Advantages": The Woman Lawyer and Her Quest for Power in Popular Culture, 53 Syracuse L. Rev. 1225-1271 (2003).

Ally McBeal.

• Appello, Tim, Ally McBeal: The Official Companion (NY: HarperCollinsEntertainment, 1999).
• Appelo, Tim, Ally McBeal: The Official Guide (NY: HarperPerennial, 1999).
• Appelo, Tim, McBealisms (NY: HarperCollinsEntertainment, 2000).
• Baum, Kathleen E., Textual Desire: Soliciting the Gaze in "Popular" Culture (Master’s thesis, California State University, Long Beach, 2000).
• Beck, A. C., That Lawyer Girl: The Unauthorized Guide to Ally’s World (LA: Renaissance Books, 1999).
• Don't Call Me Ally
• Gagne, Kristen, Ally McBeal and the Problem of Postfeminism (Thesis, 2001).
• Hammers, Michele Lee, Performing Gender While Practicing Law: Critical Readings of Performed Femininity in Ally McBeal (Masters thesis, Arizona State University, 2000).
• Is Ally Our Ally?
• Lawyers in Love
• Legal Tender: Reconsidering Ally McBeal
• Legal Representation (unavailable as of July 18, 2002)
• Levine, Josh, David E. Kelley: The Man Behind "Ally McBeal" (London: E. C. W. Turnaround, 1999).
• Mitchell, Kathy, Ally McBeal: The Totally Unauthorized Guide (South Yarra, Vic: Hardie Grant Books; NY: Warner Books, 1998).
• The Most Influential Legal TV Shows Ever.
• The  Music of Inner Justice in Ally McBeal
• Tackling the Tough Question: "Ally" or "The Practice"? (unavailable as of July 18, 2002)
• What Ails Ally?

The Client.

• Grant, Judith, Lawyers and Super Heroes: The Firm, The Client, and Pelican Brief 30 U.S.F. L. Rev. 1111 (1996).
• Johnson, Marcia A., "Ethics" at the Movies, 10 Bench & Bar of Minn. 13 (November 1994).

Degree of Guilt.

• Hodges, Ann, Legal Thrillers Lose Zing in Miniseries, Houston Chron., October 27, 1995, at 3.

Disclosure.

• Diggs, Terry Kay, Disclosure and the Packwood Affair, Legal Times, September 18, 1995, at 67.
• Shapiro, Carole, Women Lawyers in Celluloid, Rewrapped, 23 Vermont Law Review 303 (Winter 1998).

Fair Game

• Shapiro, Carole, Women Lawyers in Celluloid, Rewrapped, 23 Vermont Law Review 303 (Winter 1998).

Female Perversions

• Shapiro, Carole, Women Lawyers in Celluloid, Rewrapped, 23 Vermont Law Review 303 (Winter 1998).

Hill Street Blues

• Jenkins, Steve, Hill Street Blues, in MTM: "Quality Television" 183 (J. Feuer, P. Kerr & T. Vahimagi eds., 1984).

In the Name of the Father

• Blum, Caroline Patty, Images of Lawyering and Political Activism in In the Name of the Father, 30 U.S.F. L. Rev. 1065 (1996).

Judge Judy

• Real Court Television

Judging Amy

• Diggs, Terry Kay, Seeing Amy Judge
• Judging Judging Amy

L. A. Law (television show)

• Aarsvold, Patrica, L.A. Law producing wardrobe role models for female attorneys, L. A. Daily J., February 21, 1990, at S12.
• Glass, Diane M., Portia in Primetime: Women Lawyers, Television, and L. A. Law, 2 Yale J. L. & Feminism 371 (1990). Comprehensive study of the women lawyers of L. A. Law. Footnotes are also valuable.
• Kort, Michelle, Terry Louise Fisher: How She Dreamed Up the Women of L. A. Law, Ms., June 1987, at 38.
• Laurence, Robert P., L. A. Law's Legal Ground Gets Shakier, San Diego Union-Trib., August 23, 1993, at E7.
• LeSourd, Nancy Oliver, Faith in an unlikely place, 15 Christian Legal Soc'y Q. 14 (Spring 1994). A discussion of L.A. Law character Jane Halliday.
• Mayne, Judith, L. A. Law and Prime-Time Feminism, 10 Discourse 30 (Spring/Summer 1988).
• Miller, Mary Jane, Inflecting the Formula: The First Seasons of Street Legal and L.A. Law, in The Beaver Bites Back?: American Popular Culture in Canada 104 (David H. Flaherty and Frank E. Manning eds. 1993).
• Minkowitz, Donna, A Lesbian on L. A. Law? L. A. Daily J., March 27, 1991, at 6.
• Rosen, Robert E., Ethical Soap: L. A. Law and the Privileging of Character, 43 U. Miami L. Rev. 1229 (1989).

The Practice

• Howarth, Joan W., Women Defenders on Television: Representing Suspects and the Racial Politics of Retribution, 3 J. Gender, Race & Just. 475 (Spring 2000).
• The Practice
• Some Pretty Classy Lawyers: The Practice

Presumed Innocent

• Corcos, Christine A., Presuming Innocence: Alan Pakula and Scott Turow Take On the Great American Legal Fiction, 22 Okla. C. U. L. Rev. 129 (1997). Among other things, examines male reactions to female lawyer Carolyn Pohlhemous.
• Jones, Amelia, "She Was Bad News": Male Paranoia and the Contemporary New Woman, 25/26 Camera Obscura 297 (1991). Reactions of male attorneys and detectives to the murder victim Carolyn Pohlhemous, placed in the wider context of negative male reaction to forceful women characters.
• Miller, Carolyn Lisa, Note: "What a Waste. Beautiful, Sexy Gal. Hell of a Lawyer.": Film and the Female Attorney, 4 Colum. J. Gender & L. 203 (1994). Discusses the woman attorney as a symbol of manipulation and evil.

Primal Fear

• Shapiro, Carole, Women Lawyers in Celluloid, Rewrapped, 23 Vermont Law Review 303 (Winter 1998).

Primary Colors

•  Shapiro, Carole, Women Lawyers in Celluloid, Rewrapped, 23 Vermont Law Review 303 (Winter 1998).

The Prosecutors (tv movie)

• Werts, Diane, A Case for Prosecutors: Hey, NBC, This Has the Makings of a Series, Newsday, December 2, 1996, at B21.

Sara (television show)

• Eisler, Kim Isaac, "Sara" Team Faces Challenge of Mixing Lawyers With Comedy; Creators Find Legal Community Wants a Positive Image, L. A. Daily J., February 1, 1985, at B1.
• Wise, Stuart M., Trials and Tribulations of a TV Attorney, Nat'l L.J., January 28, 1985, at 43.

Soul Food

• Shapiro, Carole, Women Lawyers in Celluloid, Rewrapped, 23 Vermont Law Review 303 (Winter 1998).

Street Legal (television show)

• Peacock, Karen, A Canadian L. A. Law, Eh? Legal Times, December 19, 1988, at 42.
• Turbide, Diane, Sex and Intrigue, Maclean's, March 5, 1990, at 62.

A Time to Kill

• Shapiro, Carole, Women Lawyers in Celluloid, Rewrapped, 23 Vermont Law Review 303 (Winter 1998).

To Have and To Hold (television show)

• Howarth, Joan W., Women Defenders on Television: Representing Suspects and the Racial Politics of Retribution, 3 J. Gender, Race & Just. 475 (Spring 2000).