The Impact of Legal Profession Regulations on Lawyer Essay

Introduction

The world is growing and changing rapidly, and the changes come with numerous challenges, which have taken the world through the insurgence of legal controversies throughout its growth in the contemporary times. The quest to change the regulations and enhance professionalism in law and its regulations has always subjected lawyers to numerous dilemmas with the most common task being their ability to protect constitutions, guarantee justice, and balance their rapport within the socio-cultural welfare¹. The notions that individuals develop in numerous cases have created a different reputation of the legal frameworks governing the professionalism of law.

Nonetheless, the current decade has witnessed complications arising from the realities of legal frameworks and the societal suspicions with the international media including films and some television programmes constantly creating problems associated with inferring causality. Despite the existing literature, nothing seems to change on societal perceptions given the growing tenacity of media. Therefore, this essay explores how regulations of the legal profession and its processes have affected societal perceptions of the lawyer as depicted in law, film, and culture.

Historical acuity on lawyers

The growing urge to change the justice realm within the international judicial phase has been the force behind the transformation of the world in the current days. A case in point is the creation of the International Criminal Court that seeks to put nations under check to ensure that leaders uphold human rights across the world. Initially, law was the most respected aspect within populations and education on law remained as distant dream for several individuals across the globe. Traditionally, lawyers across the world and specifically in America enjoyed strong positions in the entire American society with mistrust against government’s misconduct and fight for civil rights of a importance.

The move to evaluate government performance and uphold justice upon all civilians, activitism, and stand for liberalism remained equally important national matters, and thus enhancing their power and character in the community². Laws were accorded the best international and regional respect and communities were made to understand their corporate role in shaping national images. Lawyers played an important role in institutional development including active development of central banks and capital markets. The global revolutions appear to have changed the customariness of lawyers.

Lawyers have had the image of mass saviour where individuals had notions that lawyers protected only the oppressed ones. Nonetheless, this perception appears as a reality depending on the context of personal experience in the court processes, but the old lawyer seems to be represented by a modern lawyer in general. Issues pertaining affluence, personal attitude and protection of self-interests among others have been common references to the deteriorating perception over the regulation of the legal profession and its processes that have affected societal perceptions of the lawyer. Due to the rising differences in the communal interest and professionalism aspect, research has focused much on the meaning of professionalism.

Professionalism is “a ‘peculiar’ type of occupational control rather than an expression of the inherent nature of particular occupations”.³ Women involvement in the law profession has undergone a different shift in the perception of lawyers in the community for much of what women do is deemed as unethical practices by conservative individuals in the society.

Popular culture among civilians

The underlying factor in the designing and development of this essay rested upon understanding critically how regulation of the legal profession and its processes has affected societal perceptions of the lawyer as depicted in law, film, and culture. Culture among the principle focus for the discussion seems to have greatly influenced the societal perceptions against the law society and its professionalism⁴. The dividing lines “between law and popular culture seem increasingly blurred in an evolving postmodern era, where law today is a spectacle, a form of entertainment, which real and fictional representations often mixed up or interchangeable”.⁵

In the recent decades, filmmaking and international media seems to have consumed human interests with representation in such movies proving either educative or canning. Through films, individuals have found themselves too much attached to the activities taking place in such representations, with the influence growing from single persons to entire communities, and fictions embedded in them actually influencing their impression against the realities, entrenched in certain practices.

Media influence on civilians perception on lawyers

Since the advent of media in the international entertainment paradigm, the public must have consumed large chunks of poison unswervingly against the levels of trust in law making and law enforcement protocols. Since the emergence of “the first mass-produced entertainment media, scholars have struggled with similar questions in an effort to make sense of the power of the popular media and to explore their influence on individual consumers and communities”.⁶

One of the dented public figure is that which concerns law making and law enforcement with lawyers as the central actors in this phase. The augmenting consumption of local media and the films broadcasted and advertised in the world is shifting the understanding of the real values of lawmakers in the locale of the communities. The culture of cinematography and the interests gained through such activities have made communities sway away from viewing lawyers in the angle of protection to the notion of viewing them as subjugators of freedom and justice that least favours their professionalism⁷.

Thousands of films have existed on the criticisms of the procedures and processes governing lawmaking, consequently, providing a quandary and misconception of the regulation of the legal profession. Research undertake to establish the existing correlation between the influence of novels, newspapers, music, media, films and other forms of local entertainment reveals that approximately seventy-five percent of the societal composition have disillusionment or maybe realities from such pieces of literature.

Expatiation is the “door to productivity and new creation, but given that expatiation is the result of exposure to ideas outside the immediate focus of interest, broad diverse connections and networks are the key that opens that door”.⁸ Before filmmaking and even immediately on this advent, lawmakers had a positive image in the public limelight and much of what appeared in the media seemed to echo much of the reality about law professionalism. The deterioration of the affirmative public image on lawyer began when the popular filming culture became politicised, the moment when the filmmaking and lawmaking began divergence. To apprehend criminals and serve social justice to all individuals within the community, the influence of personality in the law profession may contribute heavily to the decisions made by these lawyers⁹.

Across a broad spectrum of law education across the globe, most students have adopted the new technologies introduced in the teaching of law, its policies, procedures and legal protocols with research revealing that masses of institutions have employed such techniques. Important factors involving communal wellbeing including criminal and civil jury with the concomitant on law paw practices delivered in education through films, questions are rising from their reliability on delivering law education¹⁰. As portrayed in several law books, lawyers have constantly developed an interest in protecting their professionalism, protecting the lawful interests of the community and the entire nation. Contrarily, most of the modern films have developed political prejudice against lawyers, tinted their profession, and blurred their public images. However, as films become learning material, nothing reveals that filmmakers have any legal education.

The indication that movies, newspapers, books, songs, television shows, advertisement and other numerous imaginative wordings or images have influence on communal perceptions does not primarily mean that all these devices are void. Important lessons have also emerged from the creativity of cinematography that enlightens individuals on the realities and exposes some hidden injustices within the governments, subsequently influencing the image of legal procedures.

Experience portrayed by media “is sometimes a functional equivalent for experience gained in the real world”.¹¹ Important genres of movies like the documentary films might have important lessons from which learners, if not the entire spectre of viewer’s, dram lesson. Critical socio-cultural matters like gender discrimination, abortion, irresponsible sex, heroism among other important lessons that communities in the film interest find more of positive dispersion are quite educative. The questions remain whether all the representations have a better approach towards law and lawmakers, including their activities in the law profession given the rising ill views of film lovers.

Legal profession regulations portrayed by media

Formulating policies and regulation has been the core activity of lawyers, while defending the constitution and improving people’s life by ensuring prevalence of justice is another. Concomitantly, as the lawyers act as the officer of the court, their role is to uphold the rule of law and diligently serve the community in the administration of justice, the law itself must protect the rights and freedom of all communal members¹².

The hunt towards individual prosperity and the ability of laws to ensure justice has been a common presentation of malpractice in the movies with affluence portraying negate of professional lawyers. Most of the law movies acted in criticism of the conduct of the lawyers in the society have focused on how lawmakers go against their profession by breaching the professional code of conduct governing their conduct in the law practice. In some films, lawyer have portrayed great agility and firmness in protecting the interests of their clients despite their guiltiness and fought tirelessly to secure their rapport with such clients. Local media, produced movies, published books, printed pamphlets have attractively changed our mode of entertainment consumption with their ease in developing and integrating modern technologies putting them at higher chances of greater consumerism¹³.

The common phrase that accompanies the behaviour of film consumers is lawyers in your living room, implying that media and other forms of electronic entertainment have become the mode of wrong communication to the communities, given the changing lifestyles. Two important factors seem to have triggered the wrong imaging of the legal profession and its processes by the local and international media on the recent conduct of the lawyers. Currently, the law professional has shifted from protecting the interests of the entire community, including the poor and the rich inclusively, and raised the issue of marketing in lawmaking and enforcement¹⁴.

A distinct change on the procedure of law has been eminent, with lawyers ostensibly interested on building their corporate image through single family and industrial guard that sets numerous questions among filmmakers and society.

Common legal delusions from media

The ever-changing filmmaking industry is adorable to certain extents, though much remains behind the curtains on some of their representations that seem intriguing to the populace. Much has emerged since the integration of global arts into matters of regulations and the law profession as well as other important subjects of societal interest. Nonetheless, filmmakers are professionals trained in developing films inconformity with matters affecting societies, but are as well professionals in filmmaking entrepreneurship and none must completely trust or mistrust them.

Movie producers have long used the science of fiction in cinematography and that tints their professionalism, which remains a challenge for one to understand the reality in the two principles. One might understand this aspect in the sense that lawyers and filmmakers are all protecting the interest of their professions, with which the facts remained interchangeably received. Some important factors that need law have regularly remained implicated by the media may include family matters like divorce, unethical matters like abortion, and discrimination among others.

Poverty, equity, and discrimination

Among the most fundamentally legal matters reinforced through thematic concepts of movies has been poverty, social equity and much of the same, socio-economic discrimination. In the last two decades, “large law firms have remained increasingly corporatised with the inclusion of human resources, marketing, risk analysis and compliance counsel, finance and technology departments”.¹⁵ The multitude in the community that needs much protection from exploitation from lawyers by helping them against denial of their freedom and rights therefore feels much discriminated by the law societies given the rising importance of financial institutions.

The filmmaking industry has hinted in this aspect and in most movies, lawyers appear as selfish persons, protecting their personal interest in law professionalism, that of their defendants (clients), that of the national political interest or generally, the interest of the powerful minority. Drawing such themes as portrayed in the movies, coupled with some few realities of such circumstances, societal perception on the legal profession, and its processes change dramatically.

Police officers as law enforcers and part of the law societies normally fall under the tinting of filmmakers with the aim of changing the societal discernments against the lawmakers and law enforcers. One is likely to encounter much of the law issues on hearing news on the radio or even through watching the television bulletins, reading a national newspaper, or even news magazine, as compared to the number of times one gets an exposure to real law material. Both lawmakers (lawyers) and law enforcers (police officers) appear in regular bulletins and content presented through such media might not clearly represent the true policies of law.

Through the television, magazines or even the much-preferred movies, the law community falls more of criticism that appraisal with either police deliberately shooting innocent civilians, lawyers protecting perpetrators as their clients or even physically receiving bribes. Through the simplified life, that involves technology consumption as television and film DVDs, the representation of these mediums of communicate influence viewers perceptions.

The fact remains that the law across the globe has always remained the most complicated factor in almost all governments with few individuals or even lawyers themselves failing to understand all its procedures. Of several actors and filmmakers that have been practicing the production and acting of what they call ‘reality based films,’ none seems to portray or process proper knowledge on the law profession. The realities or even misconceptions portrayed in these movies must always have the origin of programming and staging, which are two major cinematographic techniques in film production.

In contrast, “to the abundance of positive images of the law one sees on television, one of the most consistent ideological postures in law-related movies is ambivalence toward the law”.¹⁶ The local community that seems to be much overwhelmed by the tricking and programming reinforced in such movies normally has few questions on the backgrounds of actors, and what they see is normally what they totally believe since much is of pleasure to their visage.

Abortion and divorce as family issues

Much of the controversies have risen in the programming and setting of family based movies, which normally carry family matters or themes like divorce and abortion. Nonetheless, as actors of filmmakers portray such matters in shallowly determined focus, many issues surrounding law matters remain recorded in the brains of viewers especially the local communities who seem to value much ethics. Most frequently, lawyers on the movie series acted or programmes aired on televisions act in morally questionable ways, something that blazes the notions of entire communities¹⁷.

At the expense of educating the community, or even trying to deliver important messages across the society, the law society in such movies and television programs is the one that suffers. Not only does such representation act in streaking the image of lawyers, cases of crime, abortions, and unnecessary divorce augments substantially. In actuality, laws regarding divorce and aborting have remained politically and socially debated across the world with little or no success and media wrong focus on such matters illicit sharp reactions.

The details of law have always appeared in difficult expressions, terminologies and forms, which has been a challenge for any layperson to understand comprehensively the hidden meanings. The portion that movies, books, television programs, and songs take in the entire society is considerably large and diversely dissolved into the main interests of the societies as they offer a more entertaining theme that most individuals anticipate.

The two disparities have always remained underestimated by researchers and the difference in them rarely appears in literature. Appearing in more appealing manner to the society with similar legal procedures as portrayed in courtroom movies, law-related movies, and law-related television series as well as documentaries, the societal perceptions over such legal procedure change drastically following the simulations observed in the films¹⁸. However, as postulated before, the reproductions in the movies nonetheless have no legal frameworks embedded in them as few or even no real lawyers participate in the acting, programming, and production of such movies.

Lawyers and law firms

Things that have most importantly been the major causes of the shifting of societal positive perceptions on lawyers to the extent of viewing law as counterproductive, discriminatory, incomprehensive, illogical and even arbitrary, is the extent to which the law society in the contemporary world seems profit based, have remained under looked. The world has evolved to a more competitive aspect where only that which seems glamorous remains most considered. The use of affluence to manipulate the court procedures, protect the perpetrators of evil and illegally buying justice has been one of the communities bitterness that receives attention when the media highlights on such matters¹⁹.

In a bid to strangle for their relevance to the profession and appeal to the public on their competence, law societies have merged into law firms that seem commercialised and more of material comfort than societal interest²⁰. Such law firms have focused on international regulatory activities, arranging and providing law education to financial institutions among other wealth-centred activities, which normally presents a typical shift from community’s expectations.

Films, television programs, newspaper publications, and other entertainment devices have used this to denigrate the lawyer’s image through their staged and programmed simulations. The unprofessional lawyers in the film industries that form much of our entertainment part tend to act in a manner less appealing to the public, with most of their appearance indicating an association with commercial law, and abandoning their communal role. Similar fictional stories from either novels or magazines that are popular entertainment paraphernalia appear on regular publications, subsequently changing an individual’s perception over the lawyer.

The courtroom motif “makes for easy script organisation (with a natural sequence of opening argument, examination of witness, closing arguments, and the dramatically tidy jury verdict) that fits seamlessly into the cinematic three-act structure”.²¹ Courtroom dramas that are relatively cheap simple to produce have formed a greater consumption influence for over several decades with court procedures in such movies unprofessional and wrong, but have the capability of captivating viewers and changing their perception.

Polices that seldom work

Following the presence of such disparities in the reproductions found in the media including films and television programs much has protracted in the law society that tried to respond using a few legal policies. Law, regulations, and policies have emerged to protect both the consumer (societies who are film viewers), and the lawyers who are central to the discussion.²² However, much in the same media and the public has been the centre of controversies over how laws themselves protect the lawmakers, law enforcers and most importantly, the community as a whole.

The sheer audience numbers that focus on the film reproductions with legal themes, with the majority being laypersons are nonetheless not lawpersons and neither understands if laws against consumer protection or television and film programmes exit. The regular contrasts overrepresented on television and other mediums virtual to their real-world incidence are what remain as a notion that motivates societies to go against law profession. Given such circumstances that laypersons come across in cinemas, makes them turn against the law society and all it harbours.

Ever since the emergence of such controversies between the lawmakers and the media fraternity, some laws existed and some emerged in defence of the law society. Less punitive actions for felonies of such laws have nonetheless deemed the law profession as useless as the society percept of them²³. Given the less punitive measures that lawyers themselves should ensure that media fraternity follows and obeys the rule of law, as it appears that the society’s perception over the image and behaviour of lawyers remains distorted²⁴.

Now, it has been a culture of ‘law disobedience’ that consumes the community that occurs by poorly measuring the behaviours on lawyers in the films and misjudging real lawyers in the profession, simply by setting their minds to their screens. Currently, the levels of crime, human torture, legal disobedience, marital discord, and unethical behaviours have become more common more than even before the laws started becoming powerful, an influence that possibly results from distorted, dramatised and programmed films that are of common consumption in our entertainments.

Conclusion

Conclusively, the current decade has witnessed complications rising from the realities of legal frameworks and the societal intuitions with the international media, including films and some television programmes constantly creating problems associated with inferring causality. Popular filmmaking and entertainment culture being the principle focus for the discussion seems to have greatly influenced the societal perceptions against the law society and its professionalism.

The staged and programmed films with casts that involve none of the legal professionals, not the lawyer nor the judge, have been the easiest modern way of entertainment that carries much of legal themes. The cultivation theory posits, “Frequent viewing of these distortions of reality will increasingly result in the perception that these distortions reflect reality”.²⁵

The unprofessional lawmakers in the films including law-related movies, courtroom dramas, and films tend to shift societal perception against the conduct and behaviour of real-world lawmakers. If proper actions do not appear to curb some reproduction and continue underestimating the impact of films on law, much will protract in the future given the fast growing technological world.

Reference List

Aristodemou, M 2000, Law and Literature; Journeys from Her to Eternity, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Asimov, M 2001, ‘Embodiment of Evil: Law firms in the Movies’, UCLA Law Review, vol. 48, pp.1339-1392.

Asimov, M & Mader, S 2004, Law and popular culture: A Course Book, Peter Lang, Germany.

Berets, R 1996, ‘Changing Images of Justice in American Films in Legal Studies Forum’, vol. 20 no. 4, pp. 472-480.

Black, J & Baldwin, R 2010, ‘Really responsive risk-based regulation’, Law and Policy vol. 32, no. 2, pp. 181–213.

Chin, Y 2010, ‘Policy Process, Policy Learning, and the Role of Provincial Media in China’, Media, Culture and Society, vol. 33 no. 2, pp.193-210.

DeStefano, M 2012, ‘Non-lawyers Influencing Lawyers: Too Many Cooks in the Kitchen or Stone Soup’, Fordham law review, vol. 80 no.6, pp. 2791-2845.

Donald, D 1996, The Age of Caricature: Satirical Prints in the Reign of George III, Yale University Press, London.

Estevan, L 1996, ‘Roman Law in Plautus’, Stanford Law Review, vol. 18 no. 5, pp. 873-909.

Flood, J 2011, ‘The re-landscaping of the legal profession: Large law firms and professional re-regulation’, Current Sociology Monograph, vol. 2 no. 59, pp. 507–529.

Francis, M 2004, ‘Out of touch and out of time: lawyers, their leaders and collective mobility within the legal profession’, Legal Studies, vol. 24. no. 3, pp. 322-348.

Friedrichs, D 2006, Law in our courts- An introduction, Roxbury Publishing Company, Los Angeles, CA.

Greenfield, S 2001, ‘Hero or Villain? Cinematic Lawyers and the Delivery of Justice’ Journal of Law and Society, vol. 28 no. 1, pp. 25-39.

Haddad, T 2000, ‘Silver Tongues on the Silver Screen: Legal ethics in the Movie’ Nova Law Review, vol. 24 no.2, pp. 673-700.

Machura, S & Ulbrich, S 2001, ‘Law in film: Globalising the Courtroom Drama’ Journal of Law and Society, vol. 24 no.1, pp. 117-132.

Mezey, N 2005, ‘Screening the Law: Ideology and Law in American Popular Culture’, Columbia journal of law & the arts, vol. 28 no. 2, pp. 91-185.

Nicolson, D 2005, ‘Demography, discrimination and diversity: a new dawn for the British legal profession,’ International Journal of the Legal Profession, vol.12 no. 2, pp.201-228.

Sherwin, R 2000, When Law Goes Pop, University of Chicago Press, London.

Shrum, L 2004, ‘Magnitude of Effects of Television Viewing on Social Perceptions Vary as a Function of Data Collection Method: Implications for Psychological Processes’, Advances in Consumer Research, vol. 31, pp. 511-513.

Tanovich, D 2005, ‘Law ambition and the reconstruction of role morality in Canada’, Dalhousie Law Journal, vol. 28, pp. 268-310.

Footnotes

1. R. Berets 1996, ‘Changing Images of Justice in American Films’ Legal Studies Forum, vol.20 no. 4, p-480.
2. S. Machura & S. Ulbrich 2001, ‘Law in film: Globalising the Courtroom Drama’ Journal of Law and Society, vol. 28 no. 1, p. 117.
3. J. Flood 2011, ‘The re-landscaping of the legal profession: Large law firms and professional re-regulation’, Current Sociology Monograph, vol. 2 no. 59, p. 517.
4. M. Aristodemou 2000, Law and Literature; Journeys from Her to Eternity, Oxford University Press, Oxford, p.94.
5. D. Friedrichs 2006, Law in our courts- An introduction, Roxbury Publishing Company, Los Angeles, p.111.
6. N. Mezey 2005, ‘Screening the Law: Ideology and Law in American Popular Culture’, Columbia Journal of law & the arts, vol. 28 no. 2, p. 98.
7. Mezey, p. 100.
8. M. DeStefano 2012, ‘Non-lawyers Influencing Lawyers: Too Many Cooks in the Kitchen or Stone Soup’, Fordham law review, vol. 80 no.6, p. 2812.
9. T. Haddad 2000, ‘Silver Tongues on the Silver Screen: Legal ethics in the Movie’ Nova Law Review, vol. 24 no.2, p. 673.
10. A. Francis 2004, ‘Out of touch and out of time: lawyers, their leaders and collective mobility within the legal profession’, Legal Studies, vol. 24 no. 3, p. 334.
11. Machura & Ulbrich, p.117.
12. D. Tanovich 2005, ‘Law ambition and the reconstruction of role morality in Canada’, Dalhousie Law Journal, vol. 28, p. 281.
13. D. Nicolson 2005, ‘Demography, discrimination and diversity: a new dawn for the British legal profession,’ International Journal of the Legal Profession, vol.12 no. 2, p.222.
14. D. Donald 1996, The Age of Caricature: Satirical Prints in the Reign of George III, Yale University Press, London.
15. Flood, p.520.
16. Mezey, p. 182.
17. J. Black & R. Baldwin 2010, ‘Really responsive risk-based regulation’, Law and Policy vol. 32, no. 2, p. 201.
18. S. Greenfield 2001, ‘Hero or Villain? Cinematic Lawyers and the Delivery of Justice,’ Journal of Law and Society, vol. 28 no. 1, p. 29.
19. M. Asimov & S. Mader 2004, Law and popular culture: A Course Book, Peter Lang, Germany, p.142.
20. M. Asimov 2001, ‘Embodiment of Evil: Law firms in the Movies’, UCLA Law Review, vol. 48 p.1389.
21. Mazey, p.184.
22. R. Sherwin 2000, When Law Goes Pop, University of Chicago Press, London, p.88.
23. Y. Chin 2010, ‘Policy Process, Policy Learning, and the Role of Provincial Media in China’, Media, Culture and Society, vol. 33 no. 2, p.198.
24. L. Estevan 1996, ‘Roman Law in Plautus” in Stanford Law Review, vol. 18 no. 5, p. 879.
25. L. Shrum 2004, ‘Magnitude of Effects of Television Viewing on Social Perceptions Vary as a Function of Data Collection Method: Implications for Psychological Processes’, Advances in Consumer Research, vol. 31, p. 513.