Boston Legal—Do They Really Do That?

Boston Legal—Do They Really Do That? by Roxanne McDonald

Time to ask where reality begins and ends…and fails us.

In his Celebrity Robot article on the Howard K. Stern trials, Mike Liebner discusses his disappointment in our court systems, noting how it “saddened me to think our court systems were actually like this…[with] mealy-mouthed chicken legged critters for judges… [and] lawyers who were so ill prepared jumpbled and fumbled their words to get in questions that did not even belong in a hearing about where Anna Nicole Smith would be buried.”

In contrast, as I watch Boston Legal, I wonder whether American courtrooms and law firms feature such brilliance, such litigious repetition, or such pomposity and righteous indignation on a regular basis. That is, do they really do and say what the lawyers and judges do and say on Boston Legal?

Do lawyers sue each other as much as they do on BL?
Are there some judges who, like the judge played by the brilliantly versatile Howard Hesseman, do not sit behind a bench but hang out in a seat or stand leaning alongside it during a trial?

Do those in the profession get away with as much un-pc attitudes and sexual and other harassment—protocol sacrificed for sarcasm and sharp-tongued witticisms?

In the courtroom, when a witness is on the stand, do they really allow him or her to get away with talking on and on, uninterrupted by “Objection!”?

Can people like Denny Crane get away with lying/exaggerating [i.e., making up a story about a non-existent uncle] without the prosecuting attorney digging into the truth by way of research?

Does prosecution really make an objection, and the defense attorney stare him down (into silent submission, as Spader’s dominating Alan Crane does, for example)…as the presiding judge says nothing? This is the dead-pan we are addicted to.

And really stretching the verisimilitude question, I ask whether a law firm exists in Boston where none of the partners or associates or legal secretaries have a Bwoston accent? Are they all so refined, have they all left their childhood dialects behind, or do they turn the New England tongue off fpr the courtroom and offices then back on behind the scenes or back home at Christmas and Thanksgiving?

I know, I know, the nature of the show is such that things are exaggerated for the sake of comic effect, so the dingbat judge, for instance, may be more clueless than actual, real-time judges are. Then again, if you listen to Liebner, you might agree otherwise.

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