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Wednesday, July 12, 2006
The Legal Apprentice: A Reality Spinoff
Kim recommends reality show Project Runway for light viewing. Here is a thought: what if someone wanted to do a pilot for a reality show modeled after the Apprentice, but rather than training entrepreneurs, MBA style, it would be a show about the training and selection of future star lawyers, law school style ("The Litigator"; "The Negotiator"; "The Advocate"). Who would be perfect to play The Donald? What would be some of the featured challenges?
Update: Tung Yin has some reactions also.
Posted by Orly Lobel on July 12, 2006 at 12:00 PM in Culture | Permalink
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Comments
I think Christine hits the nail on the head with her comments. One thing I'd add would be that the work of lawyers is not only not camera-friendly in the sense of not being exciting to watch, but would also be hard for the average viewer to assess in terms of quality. I don't know much about fashion but have some instinctive sense of what Project Runway designs are better than others (such as last night's breathtakingly tasteless chain-basket-hat). But how could the average reality TV show viewer evaluate whether one side's brief (or memo, or client interview) was better than the other? And would they even want to?
About the litigator show, what was the payoff for the winner? If it was a job at a law firm, that doesn't seem very compelling, since there are so many other means to that form of employment. (By contrast, a job as the Donald's apprentice is rare and not something you can just apply for through normal means.) Higher-level, harder-to-get jobs might be more attractive to candidates but it's hard to imagine the employer--say, a Supreme Court justice--agreeing to hire the winner of a reality show.
Posted by: Dave | Jul 13, 2006 5:59:57 PM
Orly, I watched the first episode of the litigator show before it was cancelled. I'm not sure what the network would say was the problem, but I know that none of the people on the show seemed very interesting to me. I bet the network had a hard time finding contestants. Other lawyers have been on reality shows and found it hard to return to the conservative world of law firm life, which didn't seem to respect them after that. More importantly, the payoff wasn't there. Would a successful young litigator quit a lucrative job to have a 1/20th shot at a job that pays $200,000 with no prestige value? The entrepreneur-type shows seemed to attract risk-seeking, energetic people in an industry that values risk-seeking and thinking outside the box. The legal industry does not. That's a long way of explaining why I think the contestants were less than stellar.
A second point -- on the Apprentice shows, the people work in teams. I guess litigation is also done in teams, but people rarely work together. They work separately on their piece, and this type of work is rarely camera-friendly. So, I guess the third point is that trial preparation is not much fun to watch.
Posted by: Christine Hurt | Jul 13, 2006 4:25:17 PM
Thanks Carlton for the info -- so what do you think made the show unsuccessful, given the success of so many law and order type shows, and so many reality shows? Dave, isn't there a way though to turn lawyers-in-the-making into a sexy show is what a producer would ask?
Posted by: Orly Lobel | Jul 13, 2006 10:36:12 AM
Law school style??! Watching a professor drone on for 30 minutes, then ask stunned students who aren't paying attention a series of rhetorical and unanswerable questions while working in bad puns is not good television.
Hmmm... watch model wannabees try on outfits and cat-fight or watch a bunch of clueless twentysomethings highlight case books. *click* :)
Posted by: Dave! | Jul 13, 2006 10:26:10 AM
Litigator Roy Black briefly had a reality show a year or two ago very much like the one you describe. Young lawyers handled real-life cases in front of arbitrators. The one I remember was a contract dispute between a dominatrix and her web designer. The show lasted about two episodes before being cancelled.
Posted by: Carlton Larson | Jul 12, 2006 1:04:07 PM
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