"The Verdict": A Movie Review.

August 26, 2011 at 11:55 A.M. "Errors" that were previously corrected were restored to the text and corrected once more. 

May 9, 2011 at 12:20 P.M. New "errors" were inserted in this review since my previous corrections. I will try to repair the harm done. 

April 24, 2011 at 8:11 P.M. Spacing was altered, again, and I have corrected the spacing between paragraphs, once more. 

April 13, 2011 at 8:50 P.M. All inserted "errors" corrected. ("How censorship works in America.") 

April 13, 2011 at 3:27 P.M. I was prevented from posting this review from my home computer earlier today. 

I will try to post the essay from several public computers throughout the day. Spacing between paragraphs is still affected in all essays at this blog. 

"I'm an attorney before the bar and I am representing a client."

The recent death of Sidney Lumet has deprived us of one of America's great cinema directors. I admire Mr. Lumet's work because his subject matter was justice together with America's political identity in an age tarnished by the betrayals of Watergate along with the decline of the court system.

Persons interested in law sometimes ask me to recommend films dealing with legal subject matter. "Judgment in Nuremberg," "And Justice for All," "To Kill a Mockingbird," and "The Verdict" are usually at the top of my list. "Michael Clayton" is a recent addition to this elite group. Two of these films were by Mr. Lumet who wrote the screenplay for The Verdict (along with David Mamet?) based on a novel by Barry Reed.

A way to say goodbye to Mr. Lumet is to examine some of his best work, celebrating that work for new generations of movie fans. Mr. Lumet's Jewishness cannot be irrelevant to his life-long concern with justice in a century shadowed by the Holocaust and the civil rights revolution.

I often wonder what Sidney Lumet -- or several of the great Jewish legal scholars and practitioners I have known -- would feel or say about my ordeal in New Jersey. I think there would be much wringing of hands and great sadness at the decline of American law in our lifetimes. ("Law and Ethics in the Soprano State.")

I saw The Verdict in a movie theater about a year before heading off to law school.

I did not believe the profession could be as corrupt as what I saw in the film. Actually, the film is Disney-like compared to today's legal reality in many American jurisdictions. New Jersey is the worst place in the nation and among the most dismal legal settings in the world. Most states have better or more ethical legal systems, but the problems of corruption and bias are universal in every legal system. ("Is America's Legal Ethics a Lie?")

Paul Newman is at his best as middle-aged lawyer "Frank Gavin." Newman delivers an Oscar-nominated performance as a man struggling to believe in the system that has failed him even as he has failed it.

The law is a jealous mistress -- often unfaithful, unpredictable, far from chaste. Down on his luck, Frank embarks on a quest for redemption through the achievement of justice that is also selfhood. ("'Unknown': A Movie Review" and "'Michael Clayton': A Movie Review.")

Early in his life, Frank did the right thing, he reported and opposed criminality -- tampering with or bribing a juror -- by a senior partner at his first law firm. The "connected" firm sets out to destroy him, to terminate his personal relationship and suspend him from the practice of law for doing such an outrageous thing.

Anyone would be led to believe that politics enters into legal ethics determinations, except that such corruption cannot happen in America, or so we are told. A sense of irony or laughter should accompany that foregoing sentence today, post-Lewinsky and Guantanamo. ("New Jersey's 'Ethical' Legal System" and "New Jersey's Office of Attorney Ethics.")

"They killed her and now they're trying to buy it."

Confronted with his own contradictions mirroring those of the system he represents, Frank must become the man he is if justice is to be achieved.

The law cannot be a system of rules without an ethical component. Lawyers cannot be mere "hired guns" without souls.

Why this global fascination with U.S. law and legal processes? Why is any attempt to understand America also, necessarily, a jurisprudential odyssey? ("What is Law?")

" ... the 1960s brought to an end a certain informal invulnerability to the reproaches of the law that various figures of authority used to enjoy. These days, everybody gets sued: doctors, lawyers, priests, school districts, employers. Americans have cheerfully accepted the law's equation of money for injured parts and feelings, and as a result we're all conscious of the many defensive steps now undertaken by most institutions."

Does this ring any bells at the Office of Attorney Ethics (OAE) in New Jersey where cover-ups in my matters are still underway as are routine "unethical" tactics in ethics proceedings? ("John McGill, Esq. the OAE, and New Jersey Corruption.")

" ... I suspect that Americans have grown intensely curious about the law because it has also become, to a degree it never was before, the forge for the shaping of national values. As the United States has changed in this [new] century, as it has become more self-consciously pluralistic, as the authority of other institutions -- churches, schools, and local communities -- has tended to fade, as media and marketing has blurred into local identities and turned us, more essentially, into a single nation, Americans have looked to the courts to provide answers to questions that would have never been posed before: the propriety of abortion, of surrogate motherhood, of unwelcome sexual advances, of discrimination on the basis of sexual preference. Fifty years ago, all of these issues would have been regarded as religious or moral questions that had no business being mentioned in a courtroom, let alone decided there."

Scott Turow, "Introduction," in Guilty as Charged: A Mystery Writers of America Anthology (New York: Pocket Books, 1996), pp. 3-4 (emphasis added).

"Religious" is a good word because America's public religion in a secular age is jurisprudence.

Frank slips a little money to a guy working in a funeral parlor to approach a bereaved family about suing those "responsible" for their loss.

Among the casualties of a careful viewing of this film is any easy assumptions that persons are likely to make about assessing legal or moral responsibility. In the real world, the good guys are not easily distinguished from the bad guys and gals. There is nothing lower than lawyers' grubby quest for clients and deal-making. Oliver Wendell Holmes spoke of the delusion that allows "men indulging in a shop-keeper's arts to believe themselves artists and philosophers." ("Richard A. Posner on Voluntary Actions and Criminal Responsibility" and "Roberto Unger's Revolutionary Legal Theory.")

Broke, alone, damaged -- Frank is given an opportunity for redemption. Incidentally, most personal injury lawyers have "runners" and cops on the under-the-table payroll (often judges are also taken care of) to hustle good cases and excellent outcomes adding to the "bottom line at a million dollar lawfirm." This is, of course, "unethical." Luckily, politically connected lawyers (usually) don't have to worry about the legal ethics system. (Again: "New Jersey's 'Ethical' Legal System" and "New Jersey's Office of Attorney Ethics" then "Corrupt Law Firms, Senator Bob, and New Jersey Ethics" and "New Jersey's Politically Connected Lawyers On the Tit.")

Every lawyer in this movie, including the judge, commits infractions that could result in disbarment if they were charged for their offenses -- and, of course, they wouldn't be. Every lawyer I met in New Jersey and most judges could easily be disbarred for technical violations of ethics rules, especially the people at the OAE "entrusted" with enforcing legal ethics.

A prominent Hudson County lawyer said to me that the "walking turds" (courthouse slang for OAE lawyers) could walk into anybody's office on a Monday and get the person suspended by Friday of that week. ("Stuart J. Rabner and Conduct Unbecoming to the Judiciary in New Jersey" and "No More Cover-Ups and Lies, Chief Justice Rabner!")

"We must try to make it right."

Frank's lawyer-friend recommends Frank's services to a blue-collar couple with a family member in a coma in intensive care at a Catholic hospital.

Frank is initially thrilled at the prospects of a quick and hefty payday.

An epiphany arrives during a hospital visit as a woman in a permanent vegetative state, as a result of being given the wrong anesthesia by a highly esteemed and supremely "professional" doctor, lingers in a limbo of lost consciousness and misery.

"They killed her," Frank says, "and now they're trying to buy it."

Like most "normal" lawyers, his friend answers: "So, let them buy it. If you get the money that means you win."

We will learn during the course of the film that a cover-up attempt by respected physicians has destroyed the lives of several powerless women. We will also learn something about "winning."

Most women were powerless when the film appeared in Ronald Reagan's America. A majority of women are probably not much better off today.

What does it mean for a lawyer to "win"? Does this require the system to lose? Should loss for the system enter into a lawyer's concerns when aiming at the welfare of his or her client?

The advocate knows one person -- his or her client, but the advocate before the bar is a player in a game or system of rules whose total "integrity" must concern him or her as much as the outcome in any single case.

This contradiction is what is known, prosaically, as an ethical "dilemma."

In a law school course in comparative legal systems (most lawyers do not take such a course), I read the writings of one of the foremost experts in the world's rival legal systems (John H. Merryman) -- especially the workings of civil code jurisdictions. I recall the conclusion of my professor concerning the adversary nature of our process from the perspective of legal theorists from the "other" great tradition: "Justice is not a game or contest with winners and losers." ("The Critical Legal Studies Movement.")

"Nurses" are easily intimidated, removed, shipped off to other states. Their careers don't matter. They will be blamed for the doctors' errors. A nurse's "intake notes" correctly indicate that the patient had eaten 1 hour before admission, but this information is altered to read 9 hours before admission in order to shield a doctor bringing in the bucks for a "Christian" hospital.

Most of the relevant evidence will be excluded from the record by a helpful judge who is on the "defense team." The system bends over backwards to protect elite fiftyish white males sporting distinguished gray hair in Brooks Brother suits.

One man resembling the "somatic" ideal of our society -- as I do -- finds himself embattled against all that these convenient images of masculine probity conceal of human cruelty and injustice.

We will "go to the dark side" in this movie: "They killed her and now they're trying to buy it." Frank won't let them "buy it." ("Shindler's List" and "Philadelphia" provide excellent comparisons.)

Several of the most glaring contradictions of our system and society are on display in this movie: the disproportion in resources between plaintiff and defendant being only one such contradiction. The big defense firm with armies of young lawyers from top schools researches every minute point of law. Expert coaching of witnesses borders on criminality or "induced perjury" which is a specialty at New Jersey's OAE.

We will learn that the defense attorney (final role for the superb, James Mason) -- assisted by a tainted judge who, like most judges, is a former prosecutor and civil defense lawyer for insurance companies -- has placed a thumb on the scales of justice by bribing a young woman paid to steal Frank's trust after sharing his bed.

This betrayal is almost as bad as corrupting a secretary or paralegal (or family member!) to provide inside information on an adversary's tactics -- ideally, before any action is brought against him.

"Laura Fisher" (Charlotte Rampling) is the associate working "undercover" for the opposition.

The analogy between lawyers and whores could not be more explicit. No expense is spared in preparing for trial.

"What is the truth, Frank?"

At the settlement conference, the judge asks Pontious Pilate's question: "What is the truth?"

Frank's response should have been: "The truth, your Honor, is for the jury to decide."

Charlotte Rampling is compelling as the woman genuinely interested in Frank Gavin who betrays him -- his trust and love -- for a soiled check from a corrupt law firm.

Gavin also is given a check and invited to betray his client by a corrupt church hierarchy complicit in the destruction of many women's lives that is still unable to come to terms with the equality of men's and women's spirituality despite the instructions of Christ to do exactly that: love one another as equals -- Noli me tangere. Paul Vitello, "After Bishops Attack Book, Gauging Bounds of Debate," in The New York Times, April 12, 2011, at p. A22 and Thomas Shaffer, "Christian Theories of Professional Responsibility," in 48 So. Cal. L. Rev. at p. 721, pp. 731-734 (1975).

I could never hit a woman. Frank's gesture of striking Laura in a New York hotel was understandable to audience members who (this is still scary to me!) applauded when Newman's character slapped Laura in the face.

Many people failed to realize that "Laura Fisher" was another of the victims in the movie whose powerlessness was reflective of the arrangements in America designed to make us prostitute ourselves for the almighty dollar. ("Abuse and Exploitation of Women in New Jersey" and "Not One More Victim.")

"You guys are all alike."

Frank's client says this when he learns of the rejected offer. Newman's expression alone should have resulted in an Oscar award for the actor. Yes, lawyers often forget that their game playing and concern with "winning" is not about abstract hypothetical clients, A versus B, but about real human beings whose sufferings should cause all of us to reflect on what we may become. "Whores," indeed. ("New Jersey is the Home of the Living Dead" and "New Jersey's Xanadu Mess.")

"Loss of belief in ourselves," as Frank explains during his summation, results in "loss of identity" or self-esteem by making us dead, in literal and non-literal ways, spiritually and ethically in a "vegetative state."

Frank realizes that this has become his fate and not just his client's condition. The completion of Frank's journey is to realize that his calling to the bar is about justice. ("'The Rite': A Movie Review.")

At the tavern where Frank meets Laura, he explains: "The law does not give you justice. You get a chance at justice."

The medieval origins of the common law adversary system in trial by combat and ordeals becomes obvious: "The poor and weak must have someone to fight for them."

In a system which tries to take away almost every chance that ordinary people have to stand as equals before the bar of politics and justice, the neutrality and fairness of public rules and processes must not be tampered with or altered by powerful bosses or anyone.

There will be no Star Chamber in America, no torture, no secrecy in the use of power, no loss of due process of law is acceptable in our Constitutional order. We are and must remain a free people governed by laws and not by men. ("Manifesto for the Unfinished American Revolution" then "'Robin Hood': A Movie Review" and "'Justified': A Review of the FX Television Series.")

An Offer of $210,000.00 (about $2 million today) is rejected by the lawyer without consulting the clients. Failure to communicate a settlement offer is grounds for disbarment, by the way. This case is going to trial.

A prominent member of the bar in New Jersey, who (I am sure) served on the ethics committee, said to me: "When you don't have the law, argue the facts. When you don't have the facts, argue the law. When you don't have either one, call a politician or get some cash for the judge." ("Stuart Rabner and Conduct Unbecoming to the Judiciary in New Jersey" and "Helen Hoens and Conduct Unbecoming to the Judiciary in New Jersey" then "Mafia Influence in New Jersey Courts and Politics.")

"Let's not waste these people's time."

The jury is the conscience of a community providing the moral meaning of the concept of law. There is no law without equity, no rules without justice. The law is not a building made of marble or a statue. It is a slim hope and "prayer" for meaning and solace in the face of tragedy and pain.

Law is the aspiration to make us whole and bring us peace as well as understanding by making things right. This is a religious hope and a kind of salvific mission.

Frank explains that "you" -- audience members as jurors -- "are the law."

Frank's success at the conclusion of the film is only on one level a "money judgment," as they say at the courthouse. More importantly, Frank's achievement is his identity which is the yield not of a verdict in a court case, but of his renewed commitment to struggle for justice and what is right until the end. ("Fidel Castro's 'History Will Absolve Me'" and "The Proust Questionaire.")

Cleverness, adeptness, skills and scholarship must be directed at moral ends or we become only an "empty bag of clothes." ("Why I am not an ethical relativist" and "John Finnis and Ethical Cognitivism.")

This is the great danger for lawyers and legal scholars -- form without substance, cleverness at the expense of wisdom, rules without justice:

"Mr. Chillingworth, [Esq.] was ... a man of so great a subtlety of understanding, and so rare a temper in debate, that, as it was impossible to provoke him into any passion, so it was very difficult to keep a man's self from being a little discomposed by his sharpness and quickness of argument, and instances, in which he had a rare facility, and a great advantage over all of the men I ever knew. He had spent all his younger time in disputation, and had arrived to so great a mastery, as he was inferior to no man in those skirmishes: but he had, with his notable perfection, in this exercise, contracted such an irresolution and habit of doubting, that by degrees he grew confident of nothing" -- it is all relative? -- "and a skeptic, at least, in the greatest mysteries of faith."

Edward Hyde, The First Earl of Clarendon, Selections From Clarendon (London & New York: World's Classics, 1953), pp. 42-44 (1795) and James B. White, The Legal Imagination: Studies in the Nature of Legal Thought and Expression (Boston: Little & Brown, 1973), pp. 852-853.