Top 5 Movies You Need to See Before Law School – If you’re going to law school, there are a couple of movies that I think you should watch before you get there. Today we’re gonna talk about the five movies I think actually help prepare you for law school.
Let’s think like a lawyer so you can crush your exams. Today I want to talk about the five top movies that I think you should watch before you go to law school. People are always asking me about what books and movies they should watch and read before they get to law school.
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Top 5 Movies You Need to See Before Law School
Well, I happen to watch a lot of legal movies on my other channel.
So I feel like I have a good handle about the couple of movies that will actually help you in law school. So let’s dive right in. In fifth place is :
A Civil Action
A Civil Action is one of the few legal movies that deal with the finances of being a plaintiff’s attorney.
It is not all steak dinners and Scotch. Often plaintiff’s attorneys have a hard time financing their lawsuits, which can drag on for years, and a civil action does a great job of dealing with the nuts and bolts of this particular problem.
On top of that, there is some great dialogue from Robert Duvall, who plays a legal professor and litigator, on what a good cross examination looks like and specifically the old adage that you never ask a question you don’t know the answer to. That is 100% true and definitely true to life. So I definitely recommend checking out A Civil Action starring John Travolta before heading to law school. In fourth place is :
The Firm
The Firm starring Tom Cruise, based on a book by John Grisham. The Firm is one of the few movies out there that actually deals with law school interviews.
One of the most important things that you will ever do in law school is get interviewed by large law firms that will come to your law school and interview you and all the rest of your schoolmates. And it has a huge effect on where you go when you graduate from law school. The Tom Cruise character in The Firm deals with the trials and tribulations of not only law school interviewing, but also dealing with a big firm in New York.
So The Firm is a great reminder that while grades are important in law school, it doesn’t matter unless you can actually get a good job during the interview process in law school. In third place is:
The Rainmaker
The Rainmaker starring Matt Damon. The Rainmaker might be my favorite legal movie of all time. It deals with everything that you will deal with as a young attorney, including discovery battles, which usually doesn’t get much press, dealing with a judge that doesn’t like you, opposing counsel that may engage in some questionable tactics.
It deals with finding clients as a solo practitioner, dealing with money issues as a small firm, dealing with law school not actually preparing you for practicing in the real world and what happens when you graduate from a lower-tier law school.
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In addition, The Rainmaker is just a fantastic David versus Goliath story of litigation. It is a wonderful legal movie from start to finish, and on top of it, the fact that they deal with realistic issues of people coming right out of law school is just the cherry on the ice cream for me.
Definitely check out The Rainmaker. It’s one of my favorite, if not my absolute favorite, legal movie of all time. Definitely worth your time.
All right, in second place is probably the most well-known law school movie of all time. It couldn’t not be on this list.
Legally Blonde.
Yes, Legally Blonde is completely ridiculous and absurd, but by the same token, it does get maybe 10% of law school experience right. 90% of that movie is just total insanity, but there is just a kernel of truth in Legally Blonde.
And on top of it, everyone is going to be quoting Legally Blonde in law school. So you absolutely have to familiarize yourself with the story of Elle Woods going to Harvard. It’s just one of those things that forms a staple of the law school experience, so there’s no avoiding it. You’ve gotta check it out. And, admittedly, it’s pretty funny at parts, even if it isn’t realistic.
Realism isn’t everything, and we need to be able to look at the law school experience through a humorous eye. So, definitely check out Legally Blonde. You’ve probably seen it already, but, check it out again before you go to law school. All right, that takes us to the number one spot. It’s a movie you probably haven’t seen. It came out in the ’70s. It’s called
The Paper Chase.
The Paper Chase is an old movie, but it is by far the most realistic depiction of law school on the planet in movie form. And since the law school experience hasn’t really changed that much in 100 years, it’s not surprising that a movie that came out in the 1970s is actually still a realistic portrayal of how the law school experience goes on in the present day.
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Really the only difference is the absence of cellphones and laptops in the classroom.
Otherwise, it’s a pretty good depiction, if but dramatized, of what actually happens in law school. The Paper Chase shows the stress of being cold-called by the professor. It shows the stress of finals. And it shows the importance of having a good outline for your particular courses. It also shows what happens when you have a terrible, terrible contracts professor.
While everything that happens in The Paper Chase is amped up for dramatic effect, there is far more of a realistic base in The Paper Chase than any other law school movie. So, I highly recommend checking it out. Odds are your law school experience won’t be quite as dramatic and stressful as what happens in The Paper Chase, but it’s always good to go in knowing that it could be worse. And if you can prepare for what happens in The Paper Chase, then you will be well prepared for what actually happens in law school.
All right, that’s all I can say and hopefully it can be useful about Top 5 Movies You Need To See Before Law School. If you did, give me a quick backup and let me know which implementation you’ve decided on in the comments below.
