The law school classroom looms large in the popular imagination. While lawyers make up only 0.36% of the population, nearly everyone thinks they know what law school is like by virtue of having watched a movie about it. In an effort to explore the intersection of legal education and popular culture, the Lillian Goldman Law Library presents a new book display consisting of titles that depict life in law school.
This display includes The Paper Chase, both the 1971 novel by John Jay Osborn and the 1973 film, alongside a contracts casebook open to Hawkins v. McGee, 84 N.H. 114, 146 A. 641 (1929), the case Professor Kingsfield famously interrogates James Hart about in the opening scene. It also contains the 2001 film Legally Blonde next to a civil procure casebook open to Gordon v. Steele, 376 F. Supp. 575 (W.D. Pa. 1974). Fans of Legally Blonde will recall that Professor Stromwell ejects Elle Woods from class when it comes to light that she had not read this case (of course, law librarians are fonder of the scene in which Elle and her classmate, David Kidney, pull a volume of the American Law Reports from the stacks).
Other titles about the legal academy found in this display include Scott Turow’s One L (1971); Edgar J. Bander’s The Hidden History of Essex Law School (2010) (featuring, of all things, a law librarian protagonist); Jeremy Blachman and Cameron Stracher’s The Curve: A Novel (2016); John Grisham’s The Rooster Bar (2017); and Paul Goldstein’s Legal Asylum: A Comedy (2017). Visitors will also find the first season of How to Get Away with Murder, a legal thriller television series in which Professor Annalise Keating selects five of her students to work at her firm. While we cannot recommend these novels, films, and television series for insight into the reality of life in law school, they remain a wonderful source of entertainment for the law student in search of the occasional distraction from their studies.