The Volokh Conspiracy

I managed to get my hands on a copy of the real script for the pilot last year, and it was horrible bordering on offensive. I won't provide a detailed synopsis, but here are a few key points:

(1) a moderate female clerk in a love triangle between an ultra-liberal clerk and an arch-conservative clerk;

(2) said moderate female clerk becoming *teen pregnant* and not knowing whether the father is the liberal or the conservative (happens all the time at One First Street, right?);

(3) the pregnancy kerfuffle playing out against the backdrop of a big abortion case pending before the Justices;

(4) a conniving, pretentious, extremely unlikable Justice who is unabashedly modeled after Antonin Scalia (or, I should said, the popular conception of Antonin Scalia);

(5) a wishy-washy female swing justice who can't decide how to vote on the abortion case because she feels bad about never having had kids because she always put her career first, and who by the way, is also having an affair with her male clerk;

(6) a go-getter clerk who begins every day with a grueling run followed by pills and vodka;

(7) a wise-cracking black libertarian clerk who is somehow able to easily insert himself into the pants of any unsuspecting female simply by befuddling her with unassailable libertarian logic.

Those are a few of the many, many reasons why the show never went anywhere. That and it was a horrible idea for a show in the first place.

i hope he is being serious. that kind of show (if indeed like the way ifoughtthelaw described it) would be worse for the American public than any obscene language, sexually explicit content or vulgar satire such as family guy.

not that i think that this means the gov would have a right to force them not to make the show....just that maybe the executive have some standards.

i also don't agree with orin that the shows focus was obviously interesting. Its certainly interesting to Orin, (who-for those who don't know-was a scotus clerk himself)

but, clerking is really an extension of law school. And you don't see shows out there about law school-you see shows about lawyers.

what about med student shows?

med school shows are really doctor shows-because you never see them in class-they are always residents/interns etc...and they usually have lots of discretion they exercise medically to make the character development flow. clerks (as i understand it) have very little discretion.

The publicity photo is dated 27 March 2008 — barely over a month ago, so I wouldn't be so sure the show is actually dead yet. And word has it that ABC is still working on a show modeled after Tom Goldstein.

I was being serious. A friend in who's plugged into the TV industry got me a copy of the script. Everything I said was accurate, sadly, though of course the script has probably been through countless revisions by now.

Thanks for the comment, IFTL. Very interesting, albeit, as you say, disturbing.

Limited premise imo. Instead of such a narrow focus the show should also cover the SC bar, SC practitioners, and the Solicitor General's office. Make the DOJ real sexy.

(7) a wise-cracking black libertarian clerk who is somehow able to easily insert himself into the pants of any unsuspecting female simply by befuddling her with unassailable libertarian logic.

This show sounds excellent.

OTOH, that show in A Mighty Wind about the SC justices who were all roommates looked pretty good.

I've always wondered whether many people go to law school because they think what they see on TV lawyer shows is real.

Ok, I went to law school because of "the Defenders" which, if I am not dating myself was a really fine show in the late 50's and early 60's. Of course, I have not seen even repeats since then so perhaps the show was not as good as I remember.

I am curious how many people were influenced by any of the law shows over the years and which ones they were.

And you don't see shows out there about law school-you see shows about lawyers.

The Paper Chase? One season on CBS, rebroadcast on PBS, three seasons on Showtime. Moderate (for TV) success.

I’d mention Legally Blond 1&2, but I have hope they won’t make it to TV series.

A supreme court clerk? Teen pregnant? WTF?

Hollywood portrays the legal profession with the same accuracy as it does car chases and shootouts.

When I was a grad student, I was convinced that a sitcom about slacker grad student/teaching assistants had some promise. Not entirely sure now why I thought that.

How many movies are there about people making a movie? Write what you know.

I am curious how many people were influenced by any of the law shows over the years and which ones they were.

Perry Mason. But I didn’t go to law school. The closest I get is teaching the legal part of the Texas concealed handgun license class. I guess Have Gun, Will Travel et al won out.

I am curious how many people were influenced by any of the law shows over the years and which ones they were.

Back when I was in college, the conventional wisdom was that L.A. Law was turning a lot of people on to law school.

Shows didn't made me interested in law school, but Law &Order + Prof. Kerr's pitches = me more interested in criminal law.

Dang, Elmer beat me to the show-inside-a-show in "A Mighty Wind."

This election season's especially bad because there's a law professor running.

Technically there's two law professors running.

Obama was a constitutional law lecturer at Northwestern for several before moving into politics full time. (which I assume is the one you were referring too)

Hillary Clinton taught Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure and something called "The Prisons Project" at the University of Arkansas Law School for two years. (In this same time period Bill Clinton was teaching Admiralty law, International Trade , and I believe constitutional law while attempting to get elected to congress for the first time, which he lost)

Then they both left Arkansas law school when he got elected Attorney General of Arkansas and She took a position at the Rose Law firm.

The sketch above sounds a lot like the short-lived show from 2000(?) in which James Garner played the chief justice. It was inexpressibly awful.

IFTL, that sounds like a soap opera. The formula seems to be: (1) take popular conception of Supreme Court, (2) make everyone involved either evil, slutty, or both.

Now if they did a sitcom instead of a drama, and the writers of The Office took a crack at it, it might not be that bad... disgruntled IT guy messes with Microsoft's autocorrect, opinion goes out to public with "Article III" replaced with "Wu-Tang, m*****f***ing"... I don't know. It could work.

My idea for a plot would be a law school, primarily about the faculty. They have plenty of time and energy for dalliances, and the politics of academia are legion. Its probably not supposed to happen, but there at least used to be some sexual relationships between faculty and (adult) students. I somehow remember one of my LS profs having been married to three of his ex students, and another one doing divorces for his favorite female students. And, you could throw in a bit of high stakes court drama, since LS profs only (not really but) get involved in the biggest cases.

Yeh, I know. Paper Chase. But wasn't it mostly from the point of view of the students?

And don't forget about the possible Bong Hits 4 Jesus movie.

I wish I were making this up.

This all wrong. It's supposed to be "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" the broadway play featuring hit songs from The Carpenters. Then Hollywood is supposed to adapt the musical for the big screen starring Louis Gossett Jr in a fat suit.

Wasn't Alicia Witt in a TV series about Supreme Court clerks that lasted two or three episodes before being canceled?

I saw the pilot for "In the Shadow of the Law," which was sadly abysmal, even though it had Wash from Firefly playing the Supreme Court clerk.

A Supreme Court television show would be great, except for how narrow that pilot sounds. I think a SCOTUS show would probably fail if it were a sitcom... people "still" have a lot of respect for the institution (outside of law schools). A drama would fail for narrow subject matter if it were simply on the lives of the clerks and judges.

You can't quite pull a West Wing for SCOTUS, so I'm curious what format people think would succeed. A sitcom might work for something like a small-town elected judge and aspirations of grandeur in a sort of Spin City-esque way, but SCOTUS is HARD. I can't think of a format that wouldn't be incredibly dull or incredibly short-lived. I mean, unless you got Gary Busey as Chief Justice.

The only way this show could be funny is if Max Tucker was one of the SCOTUS clerks.

I couldn't watch that show but I could read ifoughtthelaw comments all day long. Falcon Punch!!!

I used to tell my kids that I couldn't watch "Boston Public" because it was too realistic and I wanted some escapism when I got home from teaching school. Fortunately, they had better sarcasm detectors than George Weiss.