The Library of Congress > Linked Data Service > LC Subject Headings (LCSH)

Legal films


  • Here are entered works on fiction and/or nonfiction films that feature the interaction of lawyers, prosecutors, clients, witnesses, and judges.
  • URI(s)

  • Variants

    • Courtroom films
    • Hero-lawyer films
    • Law films
    • Lawyer films
    • Legal films (Drama)
    • Trial films
  • Broader Terms

  • Closely Matching Concepts from Other Schemes

  • Earlier Established Forms

    • Legal films (Drama)
  • Sources

    • found: Work cat.: Erin Brockovich [VR] 2000.
    • found: Philadelphia [VR] c1997.
    • found: GSAFD, 2000(Legal drama (Films), UF Courtroom drama)
    • found: Lopez, D. Films by genre, c1993(Lawyer Film (Courtroom Drama, Courtroom Picture, Legal Drama, Trial Melodrama))
    • found: Moving image genre-form guide, via WWW, July 13, 2004(Legal. Fictional work in which the capacity of the legal system to find the guilty and acquit the innocent is measured through the interaction of lawyers, prosecutors, clients, witnesses, and judges, largely in a courtroom setting. The law may prove capable of rendering justice, or it may prove to be a flawed system open to abuse and susceptible to perpetuating a miscarriage of justice. UF Courtroom)
    • found: Yee, M.M. Moving image materials : genre terms, 1988(Legal drama. Use for fictional genre films and programs which focus on the solution of a crime by a lawyer, usually the defense lawyer of the person accused of the crime. UF Courtroom drama, Lawyer drama)
    • found: Frank's Reel reviews' top courtroom dramas (or movies that feature lawyers, courts, or the legal system), via WWW, Aug. 16, 2004.
    • found: Movie snapshot's Melinda Church recommends legal films, via WWW, Aug. 16, 2004.
    • found: UCLA law review, Aug. 2001, via WWW, Aug. 16, 2004:pp. 1473-1494 (article titled: Law, cinema, and ideology : Hollywood legal films of the 1950s; feature films regarding law, lawyers, and legal institutions; legal films; these legal films are examplars for the standard pop cultural legal drama) p. 1446 ("The categories now used in legal studies--such as legal film, trial film, and films about law--are retrospective ones that have been constructed by scholarly discourse postdating the movies characterized. The classical Hollywood movie industry did not use labels such as these ...")
    • found: The greatest films, via filmsite.org web site, Aug. 16, 2004:film genres/drama (Courtroom Dramas: Courtroom legal dramas, which include dramatic tension in the courtroom setting, maneuverings between trial opponents (lawyers, prosecutors, and clients), surprise witnesses, and the psychological breakdown of key participants)
    • found: Elkins, J.R. Are lawyer films anti-lawyer?, via WWW, Aug. 16, 2004(lawyer films coming out of Hollywood; legal films; legal drama pic or tv series; lawyer film drama)
    • found: Kamir, O. Anatomy of Hollywood's honorable hero-lawyer, via WWW (PDF), Aug. 16, 2004(hero-lawyer law-film; law-films, films that treat legal issues as their subject matter; Hollywood law-film; courtroom drama; the new hero-lawyer film genre; hero-lawyer-film)
  • General Notes

    • Here are entered works on fiction and/or nonfiction films that feature the interaction of lawyers, prosecutors, clients, witnesses, and judges.
  • Instance Of

  • Scheme Membership(s)

  • Collection Membership(s)

  • Change Notes

    • 2004-08-16: new
    • 2015-12-01: revised
  • Alternate Formats