Miscellaneous

Saved by the Bar

By Anne Skove, Esq.

How well are public defenders portrayed on tv? Disheveled, angry, and losing. A new show uses a top legal mind to help iron out the differences between reality and the defender characters we see on TV.

Raising the Bar relies on the consulting and legal expertise of Professor David Feige of Seton Hall. Feige is hoping for a little bit of accuracy.

Seems as though they may be off on the wrong foot. The set -- a government-issue wasteland -- is reportedly a miserable recreation of the posh defender office in which Feige once worked. (We wonder, too, whether any prosecutors are Mac users? This seems like a stretch.)

The show stars Mark-Paul Gosselaar (Saved by the Bell's Zack), Malcolm in the Middle mom Jane Kaczmarek (who also played a judge on The Simpsons), Angel pal J. August Richards, and dour ER p.a. Gloria Reuben.

Will this turn the defender image around? Will it stop relatives and friends from asking "how can you represent those people?" Will it lower caseloads, increase budgets, and make for saner administrative structures? Time (and Tom Shales) will tell.

See New Show Aims to Represent Public Defenders, Derrik J. Lang, AP (August 29, 2008).

Full post as published by court-o-rama.org on August 30, 2008 (boomark / email).