Bad Lawyers in the Movies

From idealisation to demonisation and in-between: representations of American lawyers in legal FASP

“…It also serves to underline the fact that the American lawyer FASP genre today projects an unequivocally jaundiced view of the profession. This is further supported by an exhaustive study conducted by Asimow (2000) tracing the evolution of lawyer representations in cinematic legal FASP (284 films) over the last half-century: * From the 30's to the 60's, censorship blocked production of lawyer films projecting a negative image of the profession 7 39 We note that once censorship restrictions were abolished, positive representations plummeted and negative representations soared, stabilising at a slightly lower but nevertheless high level throughout the 80's and 90's. We also note that while positive representations do pick up somewhat during the 90's, they only do so at the expense of mixed representations and not negative ones, which continue to climb.…”

“…15 Asimow (2000) provides more formal indicators of the public's negative perceptions of American lawyers in his reporting of polling data gathered in a survey commissioned by the America Bar Association in the early 90's. The object of the survey was to assess how favourably public opinion rated lawyers with regard to other comparable professions: …”

“…30 Studies (Creo 1997;Asimow 1996Asimow , 2000Asimow , 2001Robinson 1998) of the main works identified with the genre have succeeded in establishing an evolutionary trend in the depiction of the lawyer protagonist over the last half-century. This trend may be schematically summed up into two main phases: .…”

Innovative Approaches to Teaching Technical Communication

“…If popular culture represents society thinking about itself (Asimow 2000, n. 90), then images of technology users in popular culture represent what society thinks those users are (or should be) like. Asimow (2002) authorizes the study of popular culture in professional contexts: "The fact that works of popular culture tend to reflect (at least in distorted form) popular attitudes, misconceptions, and myths is itself important and justifies the study of these works as a barometer of public opinion" (550).…”

Young people's perception of lawyers in Hong Kong: A comparison between offenders, youth-at-risk and students

“…Commentators have noted that in Hong Kong, young persons are readily brought into the justice system for committing petty offenses and are dealt with harshly for their 'delinquent' behavior (Gray, 1994;Vagg, 1998). Over the past two decades, there has been a growing scholarship in assessing the experiences and the attitudes of young people toward the justice system, and toward law enforcement personnel such as the police and probation officers, in both Hong Kong (Bacon-Shone et al, 1995;Chui, 1999Chui, , 2003Chui, , 2005Kennedy and Chow, 2009;Lee, 2011) and elsewhere (see, for example, Hazel et al, 2002;Huerter and Saltzman, 1992;Hurst and Frank, 2000;Peterson-Badali et al, 1999).…”