The legal thriller genre is a type of crime fiction genre that focuses on the proceedings of the investigation, with particular reference to the impacts on courtroom proceedings and the lives of characters.
The genre came about in the 16th century with the publication of short stories and novels based on court cases taking place at the time. Some of the novels were later adapted into early television series and film productions during the 1950s.
Many legal professionals, including Scott Turow in Presumed Innocent and Harper Lee in To Kill a Mocking Bird, constitute the primary authorship of the genre, providing their own relevant experiences.
The legal thriller genre's courtroom proceedings and legal authorship are ubiquitous characteristics. The genre features lawyers as legal professionals as the supreme hero. Their actions in the courtroom affect the quality of character's lives, as they determine innocence prevailing against injustice.
Legal language is also another characteristic of the legal thriller in that it employs real life lawyer terminology, courtroom, and police procedures among characters. The television shows Suits and How to Get Away with Murder embody the legal thriller, characterized by episodes based on scenarios of legal proceedings similar to actual court scenarios.
Novels, films, and television series such as To Kill a Mockingbird, How to Get Away with Murder, and Marshall have received nominated for awards such as the Pulitzer Prize and NAACP Image Award for their awareness of controversial topics such as racial discrimination, gender inequality, the death penalty. The legal thriller genre has expanded to accommodate contemporary social themes while also preserving the general plot and actions of original legal thrillers.
In 1958, author and former American judge, John D. Voelker wrote Anatomy of a Murder. The novel featured a lawyer named Paul Biegler who is in charge of defending a man accused of murdering someone to protect his wife. It became known for being one of the first most realistic legal thrillers for its thorough investigation and use of evidence to find the truth and defend an unlikable character.
GoodReads top five "Best Legal Thrillers" included A Time to Kill written by John Grisham , The Firm by Robin Waterfield, A Pitch for Justice by Harold Kasselman, The Street Lawyer by John Gisham, and The Dravidian by Kalyan Kankanala.
The book A Time To Kill was about a white lawyer named Jake Bridge who is defending a black client Carl Lee Hailey after he was charged with capital murder for killing two white men that raped his daughter. After facing several setbacks outside the court with the family of the deceased, on the day of the verdict, the jury decided to extend an equal standard of justice and mercy to Carl after considering what the outcome would have been had he been white. In A Pitch for Justice, veteran prosecutor, Jaime Brooks is asked to investigate the matter of a pitcher accused of murder for his legal throw against a player. The debate between the lawyers in the courtroom established the courtroom as the place where they would study the unwritten rules of baseball. Two academically acclaimed legal thrillers that were made into films included Bryan Stevenson's memoir Just Mercy and the novel To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee. The book Just Mercy details the life of a Bryan Stevenson who is set on correcting racial and social injustice through the Equal Justice Initiative. The book To Kill a Mockingbird details a murder mystery novel that provides close analysis of court proceedings amidst a dark period of racial discrimination in the legal system.
+ !Author !Name of Book (year) | |
Bryan Stevenson | Just Mercy (2004) |
Harper Lee | To Kill a Mockingbird (1960) |
Scott Turow | Presumed Innocent (1987) |
John Grisham | The Firm (1991) |
Michael Connelly | The Lincoln Lawyer (2005) |
Linda Fairstein | Final Jeopardy (1996) |
Paul Levine | To Speak for the Dead (1990) |
Patrick Hoffman | Every Man a Menace (2016) |
Vish Dhamija | Doosra (2018) |
Jilliane Hoffman | Retribution (2004) |
Mark Gimenez | The Color of Law (2005) |
Marcia Clark | Guilt by Association (2011) |
James Grippando | The Pardon (1994) |
Following Perry Mason's show was The Defenders (1961). It showcased a father and son lawyer duo named Lawrence Preston and Kenneth Preston who frequently found themselves taking on controversial cases such as abortion, capital punishment, insanity defense, and more. In the episode, "The Benefactor," they were seen to be defending a doctor arrested by police for performing illegal abortion. The episode ended with doctor being found guilty for performing the abortion but the judge suspended his sentence. When interviewed by The View Magazine regarding the themes covered by the show, screenwriter, Reginald Rose stated that "We're committed to controversy."
In How To Get Away with Murder (2014) the series features a legal professional as the leading teacher and a group of law students who devise tactics to combat various criminal cases and murder mysteries.
Australia, Denmark, and Poland import 62% of law and justice shows from the United States. Legal thriller television is mostly sourced from the United States jurisdiction
Australian legal thriller shows developed in the 1980s and 1990s covered both adjudication and punishment. The television shows concerning adjudication and punishment consist of the soap opera, Carson's Law and SeaChange. Both shows feature female lawyers who experience prejudice from males in their legal careers.
Thematic ideas of justice and equality are associated with the female lawyer protagonist's fight for change to break the glass ceiling. The inequality of men and women prevalent in the set time of the 1920s contribute to these themes present. In 2014, Australian legal thrillers developed were limited, compared to previous years that are tabulated with "45%".
In Britain, the most dominant form of legal thrillers are police and detective shows. Examples of these include the Dixon of Dock Green and The Sweeney. Women also played a role in these television shows as evident in Juliet Bravo and C.A.T.S. Eyes. Courtroom drama in Britain featured the series Justice as a prominent show, where the courtroom drama played a big role in its characteristic of the legal thriller. As Britain has three legal systems, this distinction was made apparent in the television shows, also highlighting barristers and advocates in wigs as part of the show.
As American shows dominate the legal thriller genre today, the characteristic of legal language has emerged. In the American legal drama Suits (2011), the series follows the career of a university expellee named Mike Ross, who is hired as a lawyers at Harvey Spector despite not having a license to practice law. The show features Mike Ross and other lawyers engage in various court proceedings throughout which they make their case using Latin and French legal terminology including terms such as "affidavit", "plaintiff", "defendant", "malfeasance", and "in lieu".
The problems that characters face are evident within reviews of films such as The Judge, where family dynamics strain after a lawyer returns home for his mother's funeral. Reviews from the New York Times comment on the film's transformation into a crime story, characteristic of the legal thriller. The film itself unfolds the legal thriller's ideal courtroom drama style. The film takes place in what is deemed as a "nostalgia-tinged town". Further films such as The Lincoln Lawyer have also met similar reviews from Roger Ebert, commenting on the love of three elements in the film: courtroom scene, old cars, and tangled criminals. The 2019 film, Dark Waters raises an ethical dilemma of lawyers often choosing sides within films, as the defense lawyer has to switch sides to defend a poisoned community. He risks his future, community, and life by dealing with the case, characteristic of the legal thriller.
A Fall from Grace also features the challenge often taken by lawyers in legal thriller films. For example, a young public defender has to handle the challenging case of a woman charged with murdering her husband. The film features elements of a conventional courtroom drama, such as the heroic lawyer, shady characters, and a law firm setting. Within the film, there are plot twist characteristics of the legal thriller genre. Furthermore, the film Law has ample court scenes and features a character taking on the fight for justice. The film defies the stereotypical expectations of women through featuring the main character as a woman who wants to speak openly about gang rape victimization.
The recognition of injustice is another emerging aspect of legal thriller films. Marshall is another example of a legal thriller film, where the lawyer is feature as the main character, traveling the country on behalf of the NAACP to defend black men who are accused of crimes. The film features a courtroom scene where violence occurs in retrieving the confession of a client and the difficulty to obtain the truth. As a film review reveals, flashbacks are used as a key film technique to craft outrage. The courtroom scenes are considered suspenseful and the setting of the 1940s shows a stage where people threw a facade with fake costumes and bright lights. Racism is exposed as a critical social justice issue explored where the truth demands a voice.
+ !Year !Name !Language | ||
1959 | Anatomy of a Murder | English |
1985 | Jagged Edge | English |
1987 | Suspect | English |
1989 | True Believer | English |
1990 | Presumed Innocent | English |
1990 | Mounam Sammadham | Tamil |
1992 | A Few Good Men | English |
1993 | The Firm | English |
1993 | The Pelican Brief | English |
1993 | Guilty as Sin | English |
1994 | The Client | English |
1996 | Primal Fear | English |
1996 | A Time to Kill | English |
1997 | The Devil's Advocate | English |
1997 | The Rainmaker | English |
1998 | A Civil Action | English |
1998 | Shadow of Doubt | English |
2002 | High Crimes | English |
2003 | Runaway Jury | English |
2004 | Reversible Errors | English |
2007 | Michael Clayton | English |
2007 | Fracture | English |
2009 | Beyond a Reasonable Doubt | English |
2011 | The Lincoln Lawyer | English |
2013 | Silence | Malayalam |
2014 | The Judge | English |
2016 | Manithan | Tamil |
2017 | The Third Murder | Japanese |
2017 | Marshall | English |
2019 | Section 375 | Hindi |
2019 | Dark Waters | English |
2019 | Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, and Vile | English |
2020 | Nabab LLB | Bangla |
2020 | A Fall from Grace | English |
2020 | The Trial of the Chicago 7 | English |
2020 | Law | Kannada |
2020 | Mangrove | English |
2020 | Worth | English |
2021 | Jai Bhim | Tamil |
2024 | Juror #2 | English |
Scott Turow's novel Presumed Innocent was a bestseller in 1987. His story introduced the sub-genre of the legal thriller by incorporating aspects of the criminal trial process. The core inspiration of Turow's work is examining a witness during a trial, the story stemming from the lawyer's own experiences.
Legal thriller books instigate the need for equality. The National Public Radio provides coverage of the legal thriller memoir, Just Mercy. Brian Stevenson provides insight into shaping the need for equality within America, as there have been a hundred years of supremacism and violence against black people in America.
The film, Just Mercy, raises the themes of equality and justice for the racial injustice against black African Americans in the United States of America. It has introduced the social issue of the death penalty, as American people disapproved of it after watching the film. The legal thriller enlightens hope that complex social issues such as the death penalty have the potential to change.
In 2015, the television show How to Get Away with Murder received the GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Drama for its excellence in depicting LGBTQ characters and themes. In 2019 it was nominated for the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Drama Series for its representation of lawyers of color.
The show Suits, received numerous awards for its actors including the Outsanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series award and Favorite TV Actress Supporting Role in 2012. The show namely consists of plot that much like the early series, The Defenders covered controversial themes of racial inequity and the corrupt nature of pursuing power and wealth in America.
Throughout the popular culture of legal thriller films, there have been variations in the character representations of lawyers. The character representation of lawyers affects audiences both negatively and positively. The positive impact is the level of heroism performed by lawyers in saving their client's case. Negative representations are associated with the representation of lawyers as villains and distrustful. The representations reflect lawyers declining after the American Revolution. As many films, novels, and shows are produced within the genre, audiences can choose the images of the lawyer that they like. The process of revealing these images is through showing the beginning action, the action itself and the consequences of the lawyer's actions.
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