Web Video / LegalEagle

Like an Eagle, he has an eye for lawful inaccuracies.

LegalEagle is a web show where a real-life lawyer (Devin James "DJ" Stone) nitpicks the lawful inaccuracies of any sort of media, whether it be a TV show or movie. He also does videos about the legal intricacies of some news and media events, and animations about real trials that took place in the past. His older videos give advice to people who want to go to law school.

The official website for LegalEagle's media productions is here and its website for its law school prep service is here.

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LegalEagle provides examples of:

• Actually Pretty Funny:
  • During his review of the pilot of Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law, he was amused by Birdman's 'power of attorney' pose and did it twice himself with much enthusiasm.
  • He is similarly very fond of "the best worst lawyer ever" Lionel Hutz, from The Simpsons, going so far as to claim Hutz's "No, money down!" bit is the funniest lawyer joke he's ever seen. He also claims Hutz is extremely popular among lawyers in general.
  • Every "Lawyer Jokes" or "Lawyer Memes" video has him laughing at pretty much all of them and agreeing.
• Artificial Stupidity: A pair of New York lawyers ran afoul of this when they used ChatGPT for prep work in an airline tort case, and failed to make sure the cases the AI was citing were all real and not what AI researchers call hallucinations, resulting in a federal judge reaming them for citing fictitious cases in their arguments.^note Though Devin largely focuses on the sheer fact that the cited cases don't exist, digging deeper into the court filings reveals that the fake cases contain hilariously false information. One misrepresents the United Airlines Flight 585 crash by claiming the airline filed for bankruptcy after the crash and cites a former U.S Attorney General as a defendant's lawyer. One takes the name of a real case, but discusses a completely different issue. One confuses Washington D.C. with the state of Washington. One cites itself as a precedent. And one sees someone's accidental death lawsuit abruptly turn into a different person's breach of contract lawsuit.
• Artistic License – Military:
  • While dissecting Star Trek: The Next Generation's "The Measure of a Man," he makes several complaints about the clothes the cast is wearing. As numerous commenters pointed out, that's Starfleet's uniform: it's no different than the characters in A Few Good Men turning up for court in their dress uniforms.
  • Defied when discussing military law movies. While most of DJ's videos dissecting the law in movies focus entirely on the civilian law, he took the opportunity to bring in his friend Spencer, a veteran Marine and JAG officer, to discuss the military laws in play in Top Gun and A Few Good Men, all to maintain accuracy. At the same time, this trope is invoked within these episodes, as Spencer will also point out times when said movies contain inaccuracies about the military (for example, in A Few Good Men, he notes that the "Conduct Unbecoming" charge against the defendants is completely nonsensical, as the defendants are low-ranking enlisted men and Conduct Unbecoming charges can only be leveled against officers).
• Ascended Extra: Devin's friend Spencer was originally brought in to discuss Top Gun and A Few Good Men, but he proved so popular that he became a recurring guest on the show, especially in the videos that discuss real-world news.
• Bait-and-Switch:
  • For the legal realism of Bee Movie, he gave it a B...before switching it to an F.
  • For the legal realism of Tiger King, he initially gives it an F due to how unrealistic it is... before remembering it is a documentary, at which point he gives up.
  • How to Use ChatGPT to Ruin Your Legal Career (lawyers try to use an AI to do the prep work on a case, end up citing nonexistent cases) introduces the viewers to a German word to describe the emotion he feels. No, not schadenfreude. Fremdschämen (second-hand embarrassment).
• Berserk Button:
  • Characters in fictional court scenes entering the well without permission from the judge. If you ask DJ, he'd say that the bailiff should tackle anybody who tries that. The only one who gets a pass is Saul Goodman in Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, who DJ notes appears to have a prior relationship with the judge in his particular case and could have potentially gotten permission to do it.
  • Lawyers who use the wrong terminology, especially if it's incredibly basic. In the Grey's Anatomy episode, a plaintiff's lawyer telling the judge "the prosecution rests" in a civil case (not a criminal case) makes DJ gasp in genuine shock. After he calms down, DJ says that this is such a basic thing that it would be the lawyer equivalent of getting your own name wrong.
• Bookshelf of Authority: Devin deconstructs popular media from a legal standpoint. Almost every episode starts with the attorney host talking in front of a shelf of what look like law books.
• Broke the Rating Scale: The dishonorable mentions count for Raiders of the Lost Ark shoots up from 34 to 8 billion when Devin goes over the opening of the Ark of the Covenant scene, which Devin considers an act of genocide against the entire human race.
• The Cameo: Not so much in his own videos, but chances are if someone else such as Abigail Thorn is making a video needs an actual lawyer to provide legal exposition (or even just for a joke involving a lawyer), Devin's the guy who shows up.
  • One of Devin's "Reacting to Legal Memes" videos has a brief appearance by Dr. Rohin Francis of the channel "MedLife Crisis" to provide some background on a meme that references an autopsy. (Devin would later do a full-on collaboration with Dr. Francis for a video about the COVID-19 Pandemic.)
• Captain Obvious:
  • Played for Laughs in his video reacting to She-Hulk: Attorney at Law. When he questions why Titania isn't in jail for attacking a jury, a graphic appears saying "Did You Know? Attempted murder is against the law."
  • Also Played for Laughs in his review of a Dhar Mann video "Prosecutor Sends Innocent Black Man to Jail." He is so flabbergasted by the lack of jury, the judge asking the defense whether they have evidence, the video being unclear on what part of the trial is happening, the defense lawyer not finding evidence for the defendant's alibi despite him being at a ball game in another state on the other side of the country at the time of the crime, and then the judge deciding that was enough for him to pass a judgment of "guilty" (and that's just a few of the legal inaccuracies) that a graphic appears saying "Did you know? Trials have a jury and evidence."
• Cops Need the Vigilante: On his interview on someone hitting package thieves with glitter bombs, interviewee Mark Rober says that cops love him because, since he's a private citizen and the cops aren't asking him to do anything, he's not bound by the rules they have to obey.
• Crossover: He did a 2-part crossover "Lawyer & Doctor React to Grey's Anatomy Malpractice" with Dr. Mike to dissect the episode "Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word", examining the accuracy of the medical procedure (or lack thereof) and the accuracy of the resulting malpractice lawsuit (or lack thereof). The pair later did another two-parter on the first episode of Law & Order (which they agreed was imperfect but reasonably accurate on both legal and medical matters).
• Damned by Faint Praise: The only positive he can come up with for his look at a Dhar Mann video "Prosecutor Sends Innocent Black Man to Jail" is that it uses very basic legal terminology like "defendant" and "district attorney."
• Deadpan Snarker: While he is generally professional while discussing news stories, Devin usually has a pretty dry sense of humor and has no issue adding in snarky comments, especially about poor legal decisions from real-life figures.
• Dissonant Serenity: His video on Leopold and Loeb points out that after they murdered a 14-year-old boy, they grabbed a bite to eat and even ate in the car while the corpse was still in the backseat.
• Dumbass Has a Point: Discussed in the The Simpsons episode "The Day The Violence Died". Lionel Hutz asking the Itchy and Scratchy owners for a copy of Manhattan Mouse — the basis of his argument — sounds like him expecting help from his opponents, but has legal basis: if the latter do have a copy of the 1919 film, they are legally obligated to provide that evidence under the rules of civil discovery.
  LegalEagle: So, Lionel Hutz. He's a terrible lawyer, but y'know, even a blind squirrel finds a nut sometimes.
• Epic Fail:
  • In one of his True Crime episodes, Devin covers the story of Leopold and Loeb, a pair of genius sociopaths who murdered a teenage boy in an attempt to commit the "perfect crime". After planning the murder for seven months, they proceeded to commit several textbook mistakes that made it extremely easy to find them. Such clues include Leopold leaving his unique eyeglasses by the body, chucking the chisel they'd used as the murder weapon out the car window in front of a witness, cleaning the evidence at one of their houses with no cover story, having no solid alibi beyond phone calls, blatantly attempting to frame a classmate when the police came knocking, and even pulling a Sarcastic Confession to the detectives. After seven months of planning the crime, the killers were arrested within two weeks.
  • In his video on the lawsuit against the Trump organization, Devin goes into detail about all the incredible mistakes Trump himself and his lawyers made throughout the process, including forfeiting a jury trial by forgetting to check a box, trying to repeat an argument that had already been shot down in court and on appeal (thus getting sanctions), citing a disclaimer in an attempt to blame the accountants when the disclaimer put the blame on Trump personally, trying to cite the Trump University fraud case in their favor even though Trump lost that case too, using an expert witness who overvalued Mar-a-Lago even more than Trump did with no facts to back up his assertions, and then continuing all of the illegal behavior after an injunction and independent monitor were both put in place. Devin even notes that while some of the frauds were done through creative accounting trickery, some were just straight-up easy-to-prove lies. The result was the judge dissolving the Trump Organization, which Devin and other lawyers describe as the "Corporate Death Penalty".^note The judge later reversed this decision following the second trial on the subject, wherein he fined the company around $350 million and decided that doing so made dissolution unnecessary
  • In one video on the Alex Jones trial, it had a real-life "Perry Mason moment" (as Jones himself dubbed it) because of his lawyer committing an egregious mistake. During the discovery process, Jones' lawyer accidentally sent the plaintiff's attorney the entire digital log from Jones' phone, rather than a few specific pieces of information that were requested. Then, after this lawyer was told of the mistake, they didn't do any of the things that would be required to revoke the information. This meant that all the information on Alex Jones' cell phone, particularly all of his text messages, became legally allowed to be used by the plaintiff's attorney against Alex Jones in the trial. With this, they were able to call out Jones' attempts to blatantly lie on the stand, all because his lawyer made a massive mistake and, for some reason, didn't correct it when they had the chance.
• Evil Lawyer Joke: Practically once an episode. If there isn't one in the source material, he'll make one himself.
• Exact Words: A recurring trope, since so much of real-world law really does depend on the exact wording of a law, court decision, contract, etc. For example, in his video on the 2023 controversy over Wizards of the Coast's decision to retire the original version of the d20 System's Open Game License, he notes that the original OGL does not in fact say the license is "irrevocable", but rather "perpetual"—meaning that it doesn't expire, but it can be revoked by the licensor (i.e. Wizards).
• Felony Murder: Discussed and explained in his video on Jurassic Park, in which he explains how Dennis Nedry can be held criminally liable for the deaths of Donald Gennaro, Ray Arnold, and Robert Muldoon, because his disabling the power to commit grand larceny (stealing dinosaur embryos for one of John Hammond's corporate rivals) resulted in animal-related fatalities, even though Nedry did not plan on killing anyone.
• Frivolous Lawsuit:
  • When watching the episode of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver on SLAPP suits, DJ praises Oliver's show for getting it mostly right, while providing some additional clarification about court procedures if a lawsuit is deemed frivolous or only filed for the sake of hurting someone.
  • One video discusses "The Most Frivolous Lawsuits Ever," including a man who wanted to legally chop 20 years off his date of birth, and another where a plaintiff sued himself for twenty million dollars with the intention of collecting the money from the state when he "lost" the suit.
  • Inverted in another video where he discusses "Lawsuits That Actually Weren't Ridiculous" — lawsuits that are often cited as "frivolous," but actually had a solid legal basis. One of these is the famous "McDonald's hot coffee case," in which a woman accidentally dropped a cup of McDonald's coffee in her lap: she suffered horrific third-degree burns (the severity of her injuries is often glossed over by those who try to paint the case as frivolous), she originally just wanted her medical bills paid, and it was eventually found that McDonald's served their coffee much hotter than their competition, to the point it wasn't fit for human consumption at the temperature it was ordinarily served at, and that they knew it was dangerous (having received numerous prior reports of people being burned by their coffee) but kept doing it anyway. So her lawsuit against McDonald's was perfectly valid.
  • Defied with "The Shotgun Booby Trap (The Case Of)". The case seems pretty frivolous at first: it's a burglar suing the people he robbed. But it comes to light that Edward Briney, one of the homeowners, had mounted a 20-gauge spring-loaded shotgun (aimed downward so as to shoot an intruder's legs, rather than cause a mortal injury) in the farmhouse and rigged it to fire when the north bedroom door was opened — and all of this was done in an unoccupied house, so there wasn't even a potential justification of it being for the purpose of protecting people rather than property. A month later, on July 16, 1967, Marvin Katko entered the farmhouse with the intent of robbing the place. When Katko tripped the trigger mechanism, the shotgun fired into his legs at point-blank range. The gunshot wounds required hospitalization, and Katko sued the Brineys after his release from the hospital for his injuries. The case went all the way to the Iowa Supreme Court, who ruled in Katko's favor. The court said that while the Brineys would have had the right to defend themselves had they been there, using a shotgun booby trap to maim or kill an intruder was unreasonable force, and they had to pay for Katko's injuries.
• Grey-and-Gray Morality: The Case Of episodes discuss this trope extensively with American law. The cases are about situations where Both Sides Have a Point or the legality of a situation is hazy.
  • "What's Inside The Box?" — Who's responsible when an accident occurs? How much responsibility do we owe each other? When Helen Palsgraf suffered an injury that caused her to lose both of her jobs, it was because a train station employee pushed a man carrying a box onto the train. The box contained fireworks, which the man dropped, which were ignited by the train's undercarriage, causing chaos that led to Mrs. Palsgraf's injury. Is the train company responsible for this injury?
  • "The Police Blew Up The House!" — Can police be held liable for damage to private property caused during the apprehension of an armed criminal? The police caused catastrophic damage to the house of an innocent family which faced significant hardship as a result. At the same time, the damage was the result of the police trying to apprehend an armed criminal who was a threat to the lives of everyone involved, including the family.
  • "Leopold & Loeb's Perfect Murder Gone Wrong" — Is it right to sentence people to the death penalty for murder? When two University of Chicago students kidnap, torture, and kill a fourteen-year-old boy, everyone agrees that they need to be removed from society. But should that removal include their own deaths?
  • "The Shotgun Booby Trap" — How much force is excessive when used to defend your home? A homeowner rigs a shotgun booby trap to fire at a robber who intended to steal from him, then is sued by the robber for excessive force. It's certainly within one's right to defend their home, but does that include rigging a booby trap?
• Hollywood Law:
  • It's the entire theme of his channel. His X Gets Lawyered videos go into detail about what movies and TV shows get right and wrong about laws and legal procedures.
  • In his review of the first episode of Ace Attorney, he calls out what feels like several egregious fallacies, such as the lack of a jury and the disregard for the defendant's 5th amendment rights, as well as confusion over where the idea of lawyers getting lawyer badges came from (and if this meant that Phoenix had also been issued a gun). As many commenters pointed out, the anime is based off the Japanese legal system, not the American system that DJ was trying to compare it to.
• Hypocritical Humor:
  • In the Idiocracy analysis, DJ points out how ridiculous the notion of lawyers having corporate sponsors would be... only to immediately remind the audience that he himself is being sponsored at that moment.
  • The video on the Open Game License controversy ends with DJ making a snarky comment about how nerdy a topic that was, before commenting that he's going to go play Magic: The Gathering for a while.^note Which for extra irony has been produced by Wizards of the Coast even longer than Dungeons & Dragons has.
• In-Universe Factoid Failure: In his video on The Dark Knight, Devin argues that Batman would be held liable for assault against Joker's thugs at Harvey's fundraiser because, since he instigates the brawl, he has no self-defense claim. As multiple commenters pointed out, the fight takes place in Bruce's own penthouse - it's why Batman was there in the first place - so costume or not, Bruce is defending his property, which opens him up to an easy self-defense claim. Of course, for such a defense to work, Bruce Wayne would have to admit in open court that he is Batman.
• Irony:
  • DJ critiques the It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia episode "McPoyle vs. Ponderosa: The Trial of the Century" and regards its Courtroom Antics as highly unrealistic and exaggerated for comedic purposes. When he reviews "The Cereal Defense", he is shocked that the mock trial had more realistic conduct than the episode where it's an actual trial.
  • Devin notes how darkly ironic it is that Rudy Giuliani, who pioneered the use of RICO charges to go after the mafia when he was U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, was charged with violating Georgia's RICO statute in 2023.
• Jackass Genie: One of the memes he reviewed is a comic from eat the rich comic, in which the Genie grants a person's first wish for a world without lawyers, but then immediately denies him more wishes despite originally promising three wishes, and challenges him to sue him.
• Legion of Doom: Parodied in "How Trump (Allegedly) Tried to Steal the Election", which discusses Trump's criminal indictment in DC. The indictment lists six unindicted co-conspirators and Devin edits all of them to look like members of the Sinister Six; Rudy Giuliani (Scorpion), John Eastman (Green Goblin), Sidney Powell (Doc Ock), Jeffrey Clark (Rhino), Kenneth Chesebro (Mysterio, with his dome resembling a block of cheese), and Boris Epshteyn (Vulture).
• Mad Libs Catchphrase: The Once an Episode advertisement for his law firm: "If you've [committed a crime related to the video], you're going to need a good lawyer. But if you want a great lawyer, my firm, the Eagle Team, can help."
• Mexicans Love Speedy Gonzales:invoked Two of his favorite fictional lawyers are Lionel Hutz and Saul Goodman, even though both are designed to lampoon the profession. In both cases, it's because the specific ways the characters are presented show how the writers did their homework; in Hutz's case, the writers clearly know just how illegal some of his acts are (and they're just that funny), and in Saul's case, even though he's a blatant criminal, his actual legal advice is solid. He also adds that other lawyers feel the same way, often quoting famous lines from Lionel Hutz as a joke.
• Mood Whiplash: Devin plugs both his own law firm and one of his sponsors in every video, and especially in videos that deal with very serious real-life legal issues, the abrupt transitions into the new material can be pretty funny. The plug for the law firm tends to stay with the tone of the video, but the sponsors can completely flip the script without warning.
  Devin: Now the rioters unsuccessfully took down the U.S. capital, but you can successfully get your online data taken down with today's sponsor, Incogni.
• No True Scotsman: DJ humorously insists that transactional attorneys aren't real lawyers (on the grounds that they serve businesses in an advisory capacity rather than being litigators).
• Not So Above It All: Devin's friend Spencer, as a former Marine, is generally a serious person in the videos he's featured in, but when Devin asks why adultery is a crime for service members when it's not for civilians, his first response is that there's a lot of "moralistic prigs" in the military, and he happily plays along with all of Devin's nerdy references to the movies they're discussing together.
• Non-Indicative Name: Not really a name, but he calls his dog Stella the LegalBeagle, even though she's clearly not a beagle.
• Not Hyperbole: While discussing Donald Trump's multiple lawsuits to overturn the 2020 election results, Devin discusses Rudy Giuliani's day in court, where he got confused by the difference between strict and intermediate scrutiny. Devin passionately exclaims that that's literally something you learn on the first day of law school, only to backtrack and say that he double checked his law school notes and found it was actually discussed on the second day.
  "So it was a bit of hyperbole, but not much".
• Omnidisciplinary Lawyer: Devin is not one; he's a civil law attorney (with some experience/knowledge of criminal law). To that point, when reviewing the realism of Top Gun and A Few Good Men, Devin brought in a former JAG named Spencer who was more of an expert in military law for the sake of more accuracy. Ever since then, Spencer (who, besides being a former JAG, is also a current District Attorney) tends to take the lead on videos that discuss real-life criminal law in detail, while Devin sticks to civil matters and broad summaries of criminal proceedings. In other one-shot videos that deal with a topic adjacent to the law that he is not knowledgable in, Devin usually brings in an expert to explain the subject itself before discussing its legal implications (such as when he and Dr. Mike tag-teamed a Grey's Anatomy episode dealing with a medical procedure gone wrong, or when he had Steve Mould and Coffeezilla discuss what NFTs are).
• Only in Florida: Discussed in "The Bizarre Origins of Florida Man", where Devin explains how the Florida Man trope is common due to Florida's public record transparency laws, while also giving several examples of Florida Man headlines.
• Only One Name: Unlike Devin, Spencer has never revealed his last name. Even in a gag where Devin says viewers can email Spencer with any complaints, his last name in the email is bleeped out.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Despite his attempt to keep things at least somewhat neutral, Devin still isn't afraid to let his feelings known if the subject matter is serious enough.
  • Devin's immediate response to the January 6th riots. In contrast to his usual light-hearted demeanor, he is dead serious in a way that shows his genuine outrage and disgust both at the riot and Donald Trump's response and how he encouraged such behavior.
  • Also apparent in his reaction to the June 2020 incident at Lafayette Square — a place Devin makes clear he has a personal connection to — in which he is visibly struggling to hold back tears throughout the video.
  • When discussing Trump's lawsuit with E. Jean Carroll, one of the women he is alleged to have raped, Devin is clearly morose because of the horrifying subject matter. At one point, he makes a joke, only to bitterly note that he's desperately trying to find anything positive in the situation and it's not really working.
  • His various videos on Alex Jones's legal issues make it clear he does not like the man, largely due to Jones' denial of the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting; whenever Devin is discussing Jones' and his followers' targeted harassment of teachers, emergency workers and even parents who lost children that day, expect detailed examples of the affected people suffering filled with Tranquil Fury undertones. His video on Jones declaring bankruptcy in early 2023 starts with an insult, while the following description of Jones' financial situation is overlaid with a transparent clip of Mr. Krabs playing the World's Smallest Violin.
    Devin: Alex Jones is now two kinds of bankrupt, morally and personally.
  • His video on the civil suit against Trump's lawyer Alina Habba (which alleges that Habba, seeking to get Trump's favor and become his lawyer, conned a woman raped by one of his managers into signing a bogus settlement agreement and NDA) has him genuinely speechless for the first time, as he barely manages to stumble his way through an introduction about how, if the allegations are true, she may be the single most unethical lawyer he's ever seen. Unlike most of his videos, he never makes any jokes or sarcastic observations about the situation at all, just being appalled.
• The Perry Mason Method: Deconstructed in many of Devin's videos reacting to media, where he points out that this sort of thing just doesn't happen in real life. On the flip side, he compliments media like My Cousin Vinny for avoiding this trope and depicting a case being built in a more methodical way, as this is far more accurate to how real-life law actually works.
  • Played straight in one video on the Alex Jones trial that had a real-life "Perry Mason moment" (as Jones himself dubbed it)^note To briefly summarize, during the discovery process, Jones' lawyer accidentally sent the plaintiff's attorney the entire digital log from Jones' phone rather than just the specific pieces of information that were requested. The lawyer then didn't do any of the things that would be required to revoke the information after being alerted of the mistake, meaning that all the information, particularly all of his text messages, became fair game for the plaintiff to use against him. With this, they were able to call out Jones' attempts to blatantly lie on the stand, to which Jones, while stumbling through an attempted explanation, said "this is your Perry Mason moment".
• Precision F-Strike: DJ is generally pretty clean with his language but can occasionally be prompted to break that policy if sufficiently motivated, as was the case in his Dhar Mann video when the assistant District Attorney announces to his superior that he's found exculpatory evidence for the person they JUST got convicted of assault with a deadly weapon:
  DJ: (Laughing) What a dipshit! "He's innocent!" What an asshole!
• Rage Against the Heavens: Played for Laughs in "How to Sue God", about times when people tried to sue God or Satan in court. The lawsuit against Satan was dismissed because Satan was technically a foreign prince and therefore it was a jurisdictional problem, while the suit against God was deemed legitimate on a jurisdiction level since God is omnipresent and therefore a citizen of the county, but was thrown out because they failed to serve God with the complaint. (Notably, the lawsuit was brought by an agnostic as a form of protest against recent court rulings on lawsuits).
  DJ: God continues to evade American law enforcement.
• Reality Is Unrealistic: He notes that The Trial of the Chicago 7 would normally get a lower score for realism for all the Courtroom Antics going on if not for the fact that most of the courtroom proceedings in the movie actually happened, and if anything there were even more antics on the court record that the film didn't portray.
• Refuge in Audacity: Discussed in "Leopold & Loeb's Perfect Murder Gone Wrong." The attorney for the defendants, Leopold and Loeb, was one Clarence Darrow, of the Scopes Monkey Trial fame. Leopold and Loeb had kidnapped, tortured, and killed a fourteen-year-old boy and were caught red-handed. Darrow took the case because he was staunchly anti-death-penalty, and wanted to argue against the state of Illinois killing the two men. In one of the most audacious legal moves ever pulled, he had his clients plead guilty and then requested a full hearing on sentencing; over the next 32 days, Darrow essentially argued that his clients were completely morally bankrupt, they committed an absolutely horrible crime, rehabilitation would not work for them, and they should be permanently removed from society... but they shouldn't be killed for it. It worked — Leopold and Loeb instead received life sentences plus 99 years, and were spared the gallows.^note Loeb was murdered in prison, while Leopold was paroled after doing 33 years and remained law-abiding to his death 13 years later.
• Rhyme Theme Naming: LegalEagle and his companion, the LegalBeagle (who is not actually a beagle)).
• Rule of Drama: Occasionally, DJ will admit that a scene is both completely inaccurate yet also effective and exhilarating. A specific example is the climax of A Few Good Men, which he admits wouldn't have been as compelling if it were handled realistically.
  DJ: I don't care, I don't care, it's awesome.
  DJ: It may not be realistic, but this movie rules.
• Running Gag:
  • DJ's insistence that the bailiff will tackle anyone who approaches the jury. It's gotten to the point where viewers assume it's based on a Noodle Incident that DJ witnessed or was directly involved in.
  • Sidney Powell, one of the lawyers involved in Donald Trump's attempts to overturn the 2020 election, is constantly referred to as "The Kraken" because of the time she promised to "release the Kraken" while representing Trump.
  • In his videos on the 2023 saga chronicling Trump's various criminal indictments, one of the recurring figures is named Kenneth Chesebro; any time all of the various people involved in the proceeds are shown, Chesebro's head is replaced by a cartoon block of cheese. Chesebro's face was finally shown for the first time in Devin's Tier List of Trump's lawyers, but it has continued to be hidden/replaced in every other video since then.
• Serious Business: Oxford Commas for DJ, if the Unprofessional Memes review is anything to go by.
  For some reason, some of those partners out there don't use Oxford Commas, they're wrong, they should be ostracized, but, look, sometimes they're the boss...
• Sharp-Dressed Man: Lawyers abide by a pretty strict dress code, so it's no surprise Devin never presents a video without a suit and tie and has discussed the importance of being properly dressed in court on occasion. Even his more dressed-down appearances have him in a well-fitted polo shirt and khakis at minimum. He has had a few clothing companies as sponsors.
• Shown Their Work: Devin always gives a lot of praise to works that get the details of a legal case right. Additionally, he also praises works where the scriptwriters do a good job of showing a lawyer as incompetent, noting that the screenwriters would still have to have a solid understanding of the legal profession in order to effectively create a character who's really bad at it. He particularly praises My Cousin Vinny for both aspects of this and providing good examples of a real-life trial and the behavior required, showing both Vinny's poor behavior at the start as an example of how not to act and citing his turn around later as more in line with what's expected of an attorney and praising his skill at cross examination.
• Signing Off Catchphrase: At the end of every video: "And I'll see you in court."
• Squee:
  • While it was a nightmare to research and analyze, DJ has nothing but love and praise for the Better Call Saul episode "Chicanery" for its signature battery scene; even as he goes in depths as to the legal issues at work and complains about how much research it took, he's constantly praising the episode for its completely unique situation.
  • Lets out a small literal one when talking about the NBC Universal lawsuit over trimming trees outside of their studio in Los Angeles, trees managed by the city itself, not the company.
    Eagle: You know what that means. It finally happened! [puts on sunglasses] We're talking TREE LAW, BABY! [starts clapping, CG confetti pops in high-pitched voice] Eeeeee, it finally happened, yaaaaay!
• Straight Man: If DJ makes a cameo in another YouTuber's video, he'll likely be this, providing real legal expertise to a snarky, often very wacky host.
• Stunned Silence: While reviewing It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia's episode "Hero or Hate Crime," DJ is left in this after the fast-forwarded footage of them discussing N-Word Privileges.
  ... Okay, let's um... Let's just move on.
• Stupid Evil: Pointed out for the villain of a Dhar Mann video, specifically a corrupt prosecuting attorney who seeks to send an innocent man to jail by suppressing evidence that would acquit him, because he thinks it'll ensure a promotion. Not only is that a career-ending Brady Violation that would be ridiculously easy to expose (which ends up happening), the supposed reward for this massive and unprovoked risk is also nonexistent. He's getting some no-name sent to state prison for Assault with a Deadly Weapon, one of the most routine charges imaginable and not something his superiors are likely to take notice of at all, much less think is so impressive that they'd have to fast track him to DA.
• Television Is Trying to Kill Us: Defied. DJ goes over scenes in fiction, pointing out how such things would never happen because it would be a fast track to a lawyer getting disbarred and/or somebody going to jail.
• True Crime: A side project on the channel is several true crime episodes, complete with stylized narration and even several voice-acted parts by people other than Devin. In a unique twist, while the crimes in question are dwelled upon, it focuses more on noteworthy trials than on the crimes themselves, tackling complex legal questions like "is it legal to set a deadly trap for a robber?" or "who's at fault if the police destroy a house with intent to catch the deadly criminal inside?" before revealing the actual outcome.
• What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: In-Universe. Devin finds it rather bizarre that Raiders of the Lost Ark is considered wholesome family entertainment given all the violence and murder on display (as well a case of a statutory rape, as he argues).
• YouTuber Apology Parody: "I'm sorry." has Devin giving a big sigh and "apologizing" that his reactions in a recent reaction video not being made in real time, promoting the video by warning viewers not to watch the hilarious observations or explanations of legal issues, and at the end breaking the serious façade by chuckling.

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"And I'll see you in court."