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Volume 22, Number 1 (1997) reprinted by permission Oklahoma City University Law Review IF GOD WANTED LAWYERS TO FLY, SHE WOULD HAVE GIVEN THEM WINGS: LIFE, LUST & LEGAL ETHICS IN BODY HEAT JOHN M. BURKOFF* But, then again, I don't know you. Maybe you aren't that basic or clean-cut yourself. Maybe you have lots of tatoos and body piercings (and who knows where?). Maybe you are after someone or something just a little bit different in your choice of a lawyer. Maybe you're looking for, let's say, a vaguely dissolute, blond, sexstarved kind of guy with minimal legal skills and financial assets, and a vestigial code of ethics. Well, Ned Racine might fill your bill (or whatever) rather nicely. This is no Alan Dershowitz or Larry Tribe we're talking about here! Ned Racine was just the sort of two-bit, no-account (but aesthetically pleasing) lawyer that Matty Walker (Kathleen Turner in her steamy, lawyer-melting cinematic debut), the female lead in Body Heat, was looking for. Matty did not feel the need to go paging through the Martindale-Hubbell legal directory to look for a lawyer referral. Poised to commit the "perfect crime," she clearly had criteria other than degrees, experience, and legal ability in mind when looking for appropriate legal representation. Nor did Matty keep these criteria all that well-hidden. "You're not too smart, are you?" she asks Ned at one point in the film, "I like that in a man." Indeed, one suspects that had Matty actually retained Joel Hyatt or Larry Tribe instead of Ned Racine, things would have turned out just a tad differently. It's a safe bet, for one thing, that Joel Hyatt would not have run for the Senate in Ohio, and Larry Tribe could flat out forget sitting on the Supreme Court. At the very least, absent Ned Racine, video rentals of Body Heat would have been down sharply: who would want to watch a decent, clean-cut lawyer practicing law by-the-books on the big screen for an hour and fifty minutes? But, interestingly, as weak a lawyer and a person as Ned Racine was, his portrayal nonetheless reflected a number of stereotypic lawyer traits commonly found in many, if not most, lawyers--warts and all, hell, warts above all--as we are often depicted by Hollywood. Take the notion, for example, of a lawyer's common sense. Hollywood typically deals with this virtue as a patent oxymoron. Ned could never see the forest for the trees. While he may have been minimally smart enough to practice law and smoke a cigarette at the same time (although how smart he was to smoke immediately after jogging is another matter), like many of the big screen lawyers before and after him, obsessed with his own interests or irrelevant detail, he was no Einstein at figuring out the big picture. Matty had rather little problem in attracting and distracting his attention and, thereafter, in leading him around by the nose or, in the interests of accuracy, actually by some more pliable part of his anatomy. The issue of common sense (or lack thereof) aside, Ned's portrayal and the reaction to Ned's profession by others also reflects the common Hollywood view of lawyers as focused almost entirely on ends to the exclusion of means. In a scene which takes place in a restaurant, Ned joins Matty and her husband, Edmund (the subsequent target of Ned and Matty's homicidal plotting, played by Richard Crenna), at a table. Edmund tells Ned that "honest lawyers don't make much money, and I can't stand the slimy ones." Matty interjects, telling her husband not to badmouth lawyers: "It's Mr. Racine's profession." Ned responds: "It's OK. I don't like it much." Edmund then says that he respects people "that will do whatever is necessary" to achieve desired results. Ned finishes the thought by admitting: "I'm a lot like that." We lawyers are often viewed as heartless in just this respect: bloodless, briefcase-carrying automatons, savaging opposing parties, taking no prisoners, and, above all, "doing whatever is necessary" for our clients without concern for the true merits of their cause or the overarching interests of justice. We're portrayed as Gordon Liddy-style professionals: Mom better watch out when she crosses the street in front of our cars and, we're in a hurry to get somewhere. What can I say, of course there are some lawyers like that. And there are--yes, Virginia--some heartless podiatrists, parents, plumbers and priests out there as well. While Hollywood is under neither a moral nor legal obligation to depict only Joel Hyatt, Larry Tribe, or some more-idealized vision of a lawyer on the screen, we lawyers do seem to do disproportionately well in the cinematic character flaw department. Is this deserved? I doubt it. The very people who would pillory us for single-minded pursuit of a client's claims are often the same people who retain us precisely for and fully expect single-minded, zealous pursuit of their claims. While it is not a lawyer's professional obligation to be so single-minded that he or she neglects either ethics or the law in the pursuit or defense of a client's claim--indeed, quite the opposite--loyalty and zealousness to the client in attending to that client's interests are in fact deemed to be exceedingly important professional virtues, both by the legal system and by clients themselves. It is, it would seem, aggressive pursuit of other people's legal claims that annoys and upsets so many people, especially screenwriters! This is particularly true when the person complaining is himself or herself the target of a lawsuit or even a bit player in legal proceedings. And, let's face it, matching stereotype with stereotype, aren't actors, actresses, screenwriters, directors, producers and their ilk just the sort of people who might most dislike lawyers, having found themselves on the wrong side of a subpoena, complaint or indictment or two? Nonetheless, to the extent that Ned Racine was played in Body Heat as being driven almost exclusively by his own desires for self-gratification, no matter how cynical a view one may take of lawyers' motives and methods generally, one is, I hope, hard pressed to believe that many lawyers, even the most lusty or self-centered among us, would be tempted to sink to the homicidal depths that Ned did, whatever the ends being pursued. I confess that I possess some visceral understanding of how Matty Walker--when she really put her mind (and all else) to it--could drive a guy wild enough to smash in her window in order to make love to her on the foyer floor. Even a tax lawyer should be able to understand how that sort of thing can just happen, especially in the extraordinary heat that persisted throughout the film. As one character pointed out, because of the heat, "everything's just a little askew. Pretty soon people start thinking the old rules are no longer in effect." Okay, "the old rules are no longer in effect." Unusual events are taking place in all the heat. Clothing is being discarded. Morals, too. Even a good lawyer might make a mistake or two in zealous, pursuit of his or her client's goals in the absence of airconditioning. But, come on, sex and murder are simply not fungible! Are we lawyers (or, granted, maybe its just male, heterosexual lawyers we're talking about here) really fairly viewed as so "out of it" that, obsessed by some personal or professional objective, we are no longer deterred by the consequences of flagrant criminal behavior? (Okay, you don't have to answer the question.) However, if it is strictly a lawyer's role to do whatever his or her client wants for money, other than the presence or absence of clothing, how is that different from prostitution? From my point of view, aside from the fact that it would have killed the film at the box office (i.e we're not talking about real life here), it's hard to believe that Ned couldn't keep his testosterone level in check for at least the brief period of time it would have taken to realize that planning and committing a homicide--THAT'S MURDER, NED!!!--can get a fellow disbarred, and worse. Oh those men and their hormones! Matty certainly was right about one thing. For someone who appeared to think he was rather savvy and "street smart," a lawyer after all, Ned sure was an idiot! And it is entertaining to see the role reversal in Body Heat from the usual cinematic gender stereotyping. Matty, the female lead, is the "smart guy," while Ned, the male lead, is cast as the "dumb blonde." There's another more subtle point here worth dwelling upon. To my mind, the legal profession should generally be viewed as being comprised of "the good guys." As trite as it may sound, lawyers are a vital part of the check against oppressive officialdom. They truly do seek justice and fair play on behalf of their clients. But, as noble and heroic as I might like to cast lawyers generally for their dedication to their clients' interests, and as much as I might like to peddle such heroism as justification for the harm that some lawyers might do to others along the way, it's important to take note of the fact that Ned Racine was not really very dedicated to his clients at all. At least not to the non-seductive ones. Ned had already been successfully sued for legal malpractice. Indeed, Matty apparently viewed Ned's personal and professional failures as his strongest attractions, coupled with, of course, his appealing lack of intelligence. Whenever we see Ned in his law office, he is (studiously) doing no legal work. The one occasion in the film when he is seen doing something remotely legal--apparently looking over a document--he is obviously not concentrating, and he drops his pen and stares off into space, contemplating, perhaps, his next felony. When one of his clients, an elderly woman, shows up at his office, he makes an expansive show of care and concern in response to her queries, but he also immediately mocks her to his secretary when her back is turned. At one point in the film, Ned comments at a police station that he "has had a lot of experience with disgruntled people." One gets the strong sense that Ned himself may have been the source of a good bit of the disgruntlement. But an even more depressing consequence of this characterization of Ned Racine as a lawyer whose concern for his clients is actually a sterile facade, is that, to the extent it is really an accurate characterization of many lawyers, it renders hollow and pathetic my and the legal profession's attempt to paint a picture of lawyers as heroic in defense of their clients. If lawyers' otherwise harmful actions are justifiable because of the social and systemic value of their dedication to their clients' interests, then ipso facto, lawyers must really be dedicated to their clients to be entitled to such a justification. And not just to the hot ones, the ones you want to be with on the foyer floor. Again, I know, I know, lighten up, it's the movies. It's not real life. Ned Racine is hardly representative of nor a poster boy for the legal profession. But as unlikely as the plotted homicidal premise in Body Heat may be in real life, it's certainly clear to me that many, many people--real, flesh and blood, non-Hollywood people--view lawyers in just this way. Selfcentered. Obsessive. Uncaring. Unethical. Lacking common sense. It's just as obvious to me that this is hardly Hollywood's fault: stereotypes often (stereotypically) are based on some grain of truth. And I'm less prone to believe that Hollywood creates stereotypes, than that it reflects them and then, perhaps, bloats them way out of shape and proportion. In any event, if there's a moral in all of this for lawyers, the lesson being taught by such cinematic characterizations as Ned Racine's in Body Heat may be this: if we're to get credit from the public for our professional dedication to and zealous representation of our clients, we've got, at the very least, to actually be just that: dedicated and zealous. Or maybe all of this is just too much intellectualizing. Perhaps the lesson to be learned is much more simple and stark: don't kill your clients' spouses. Okay, we can handle that one. [192] |
