Another great and entertaining Forum conversation with Jill Eikenberry and Michael Tucker, two Emmy and Golden Globe award-winning cast members from the iconic TV drama, L.A. Law. We showed many clips from the show, including the one where Ann and Stuart are married, which was sweet to revisit but also a reminder that Jill and Michael are, indeed, married in real life. Jill and Michael talked about the ways in which the show raised moral issues each week that were often too difficult for the legal system to resolve, and so the trials were very much close calls in which Americans debated the outcomes the morning after each episode aired. Apparently a new generation of lawyers were inspired to enter law school because of their weekly addiction to L.A. Law. Yet many lawyers would approach Jill and Michael to say that the show was unrealistic, that it did not depict lawyers engaged in their actual workdays. As we all know, lawsuits take years to resolve, and in most cases they settle or are resolved in ways that produce little in the way of closure or reconciliation. As Jill reminded us, there was something comforting in knowing that cases could be resolved and concluded in 54 minutes of television. Yet we discussed the ways in which the attorney-client privilege often leads to absurd if not crazy-making outcomes; the way in which lawyers could serve the public good as well as their client’s interests; the way lawyers sometimes can’t seem to leave their cases at the office–sometimes they anguish over them at home and can’t fall asleep because their conscience and convictions won’t allow them to do so; and the way in which L.A. Law humanized the domestic lives of lawyers and made them complex and interesting people in addition to being dynamic crusaders on behalf of their clients. Michael revealed that he wanted to be a lawyer when he was young; Jill said that she stayed up late to watch Perry Mason when she was a little girl and loved the fictional character Atticus Finch.

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