Man ‘used TV legal dramas to impersonate lawyer’

A man has been accused of impersonating a lawyer in more than 50 court cases after watching TV legal dramas including ‘The Good Wife’ and ‘Boston Legal’for tips.

Tahir Malik, who has no legal training, often watched the shows and picked up what to say and how to file court motions, according to his father.. [and]fooled courts in Cook County, Illinois, for several years. … He was eventually discovered last month when a court clerk became suspicious about his behaviour and asked to see his legal credentials.

An interesting use for court-room dramas, eh, Ted? But what does it say about law schools that Malik got that far?

Law and Film: Despicable Me

… I’ve been reminded of this back-and-forth interplay between parties (the law professor and the student, or the secured party and the debtor) as my daughters have watched (over and over and over and …) one of the DVDs they received for Christmas:  Despicable Me.  In this delightful animated film, the lead character (Gru) adopts three little girls (Margo, Agnes, and Edith) to assist him in stealing a “shrink ray” gun from a competing villian.  Gru is not used to having three little girls in his house, and he quickly sets about to establish some boundaries. …

It really is quite charming.  But it also is a wonderful illustration of what can happen if a person states an overly broad position — a concern that can arise in the law school classroom, as well as during document negotiations.  For that reason, perhaps this snippet from the film merits consideration for inclusion in any “law and film” course.   

This is plainly another candidate for Ted Tjadan’s list of law-related movies of 2010! And Jordan Furlong even sees lessons for the legal profession in an episode of Thomas the Tank Engine.