Civil Trials: A Film Illusion?

Abstract

The right to trial in civil cases is enshrined in the United States Constitution and most state constitutions. Most people, laypersons and legal professionals alike, consider trials an essential component of American democracy. But real life civil trials are disappearing from the American legal landscape. Films, like books designed for consumption by the general public, are cultural documents that embody a society’s attitudes about and views of the law and the legal system. Courtroom films are the most easily recognizable and popular subset of films about law because they provide the stage for an examination of some aspect of a trial—juries, lawyers, litigants, laws or the legal process itself. Some legal commentators contend that legal films have the capacity to teach and encourage film audiences to think more critically about the legal system. But most trial films involve criminal cases. Thus this essay asks whether the distinction between criminal and civil films trials is important when determining the impact of the decline in real-life civil trials on American popular culture and courtroom films in particular.

Keywords: [civil trials, film, law and popular culture