I Love Law & Order, but I Hate Jack McCoy

February 16, 2012 by Carl G. Archer, Esq..

And the thing is that I really do like him, as a character. Sam Waterston is absolutely brilliant.

The only point I’m trying to make is that Jack McCoy, the lawyer, is everything you DON’T want to do in trial. People watching him (unfortunately, now in reruns) elegantly and succinctly tear down defense attorneys and defendants, summing up each case in two minutes flat and often using some sort of physical gimmick, get the idea that this is how you conduct yourself in court. If a lawyer actually acted like this in court, they’d get fined, laughed at, and thrown out. Not necessarily in that order.

If you think that you have any idea how to conduct yourself in court or in legal proceedings as a result of watching legal shows on TV, you are dangerously deluded. I’m as big a L&O junkie as anybody else, but it’s just entertainment. Please, nothing more.

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