For my law in culture review, I watched How to Get Away with Murder. This show was released on September 25, 2014 and lasted until May 14, 2020. It has six seasons and sixty episodes. It is about a brilliant defense attorney and part-time professor (Annalise Keating), who teaches criminal law or as she preferred to call it “How to get away with murder”. Every year she selects a group of her students to go and work with her at her law firm. The students who were chosen, worked for her as paralegals throughout the show while being investigated for high-profile cases in which they broke the law, but surprisingly got away with it.

The show is mostly about criminal cases; nevertheless, there are several scenarios that portrays what has been thought in our classes. For instance, the way the federal court system works. In our Civil Procedure class, we learned that Federal courts have two types of jurisdiction, federal question jurisdiction and diversity jurisdiction. On the show Annalise takes a class action lawsuit to the U.S. Supreme Court. In order to get there, the case had to meet the requirements (in this case federal question jurisdiction) which were violations to the 6 and 14 amendments, then Annalise had to go through to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, where she lost and finally appeal to U.S Supreme Court. They emphasized how the U.S Supreme Court only take 2% of the cases submitted, but she still submitted a writ of certiorari, which was granted. Other aspect that portrayed our classes specially Introduction to paralegal studies was the violation of the 3C’s confidentiality, competence and conflicts of interest. I cannot recall how many times they broke them, but I could see how it affected every case.

I would say the show has some scenarios that are not realistic at all; however, most of it did accurately portray what the law field is, for example the paralegals conducting research, interviewing witness, the consequences of violating ethical duties, lawyer arguing with each other on court and the court system. My favorite episode was Lahey v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania which is the one where Annalise goes to the U.S. Supreme Court. On this episode Olivia Pope from scandal (another TV show related to law) come alone and help Annalise with the class action lawsuit brought to the Supreme Court. I would definitely recommend this show, it is entertaining and a little bit addictive I would say.