Papke On Pop Culture Divorce Lawyers

David Ray Papke, Marquette University Law School, has published Comedic Critique: The Pop Cultural Divorce Lawyer. Here is the abstract.

This essay discusses pop cultural divorce lawyers, focusing in particular on the lawyer Arnie Becker in L.A. Law (NBC, 1986-94) and on divorce lawyers in such Hollywood films as War of the Roses (1996), Liar Liar (1997), and Intolerable Cruelty (2003). The portrayals are largely comedic, but the comedy has a sharp bite. Pop cultural divorce lawyers emerge as manipulative, conniving, materialistic, self-interested, lusty, and narcissistic. The prototypical portrayal, the culture industry assumes in an unreflective, unsystematic way, will resonate with viewers and, in particular, their attitudes about divorce lawyers. Commercial success, after all, is always the industry’s first goal.

Download the paper from SSRN at the link.

Another section of the PCBA (Popular Culture Bar Association) identified.