"[W]e should never lose sight of the fact that even a person accused of the most heinous crimes, and no matter the likelihood that he or she actually committed those crimes, is entitled to the full protection of the [law]. Short-cutting or short-circuiting those rights affects not only the accused, but also the entire reputation of the criminal justice system."
— Decision of the Canadian Supreme Court in R. v. Burlingham, [1995] 2 S.C.R. 206.
Watch the lawyers do their thing. Also commonly known as a Courtroom Drama, this is a work of dramatic fiction principally about litigation: be it civil or criminal cases, with the latter being more common because it often makes for better drama note . A military courtroom drama is one of the most common subgenres.
Most crime dramas focus on criminal investigations done by law enforcement officers (in the form of either a Cop Show or a Police Procedural) and does not often extend to anything happening in a courtroom. In such works where courtroom drama only lasts a single or a few episodes only, it's a Courtroom Episode.
If you're looking for works about people who make the law, see Government Procedural.
Courtroom Antics are to be expected. Also see The Courtroom Index for a list of common tropes.
Index of law procedural works:
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Anime and Manga
Comic Books
- Daredevil: The titular protagonist is a lawyer, so scenes when he's not doing his superheroics have him do his day job.
Fan Works
- Chrysalis Visits The Hague is about Queen Chrysalis facing an ICC war crimes tribunal, and the legal and social implications thereof.
- Turnabout Storm, a major Ace Attorney/My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic Crossover.
- Elements of Justice is a Recursive Fanfiction sequel to Turnabout Storm.
- Vinyl and Octavia Duel Destiny is this, as it's mostly a homage to Ace Attorney.
- The Loud House fanfic No Happy Ending is about Rita and Lynn Sr. facing child neglect charges over the No Such Luck incident.
Film
(adaptations or original works)
- 12 Angry Men The jury deliberation is the only focus on the film/play.
- Anatomy of a Murder
- ...And Justice for All
- Blind Faith
- Boomerang! (1947)
- A Civil Action
- The Caine Mutiny
- The Caine Mutiny Court Martial
- Chicago, in part, as it covers Roxy Hart's trial for the murder of her lover in a crime of passion.
- The Client
- Compulsion, A 1959 film with Orson Welles, based on the Leopold and Loeb murder trial.
- The Crime Is Mine
- Dark Waters
- Day of Defense
- Denial, A 2016 film about a libel suit between American Holocaust specialist Deborah Lipstadt (and her publisher) and British Holocaust denier David Irving
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- A Few Good Men
- Fracture (2007)
- Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem
- i am sam
- Inherit the Wind
- In the Fade: Much of the film involves André and Edda Möller's trial for murdering Katja's family.
- In the Name of the Father
- JFK
- The Judge
- Judgment In Berlin
- Judgment at Nuremberg
- Just Mercy
- Kramer vs. Kramer
- Libel
- M, featuring not a legal courtroom but the criminal underworld equivalent.
- Marriage Story
- Marshall, a true story about Thurgood Marshall's time as a defense attorney, and specifically about a case where he defended a Black chauffeur accused of sexually assaulting his employer.
- Official Secrets
- The Paradine Case
- The Passion of Joan of Arc
- Paths of Glory
- The People vs. Larry Flynt
- Philadelphia
- Presumed Innocent
- The Rainmaker
- Reversal of Fortune
- Runaway Jury
- The Seven Minutes
- Snow Falling on Cedars
- The Tattered Dress
- To Kill a Mockingbird
- The Trial a 1962 film by Orson Welles, based on the novel by Franz Kafka.
- The Trial of the Chicago 7
- True Believer
- The Truth (1960)
- The Verdict
- The Winslow Boy
- Witness for the Prosecution. Billy Wilder's adaptation of Agatha Christie.
- The Wrong Man
Literature
Indexed
- Babylon has Japanese public prosecutors as the main characters investigating a pharmaceutical company for rigging fake test results from a university.
- Christopher Paget and its spinoffs have a few
- The King of Torts is a legal thriller by John Grisham about a series of lawsuits against pharmaceutical companies.
- Mickey Haller series
- The Lincoln Lawyer (2005)
- The Brass Verdict (2008)
- The Reversal (2010)
- The Fifth Witness (2011)
- The Gods of Guilt (2013)
- The Law of Innocence (2020)
- Miracle Creek
- Njal's Saga, a saga of a lawyer in medieval Iceland. Possibly the Ur-Example.
- Saving Max
- Snow Falling on Cedars is a legal thriller by David Guterson.
Unindexed
- Spisi i ljudi (Documents and people) by Serbian lawyer and academic Tibor Varadi is a somewhat fictionalized account of the legal cases from his family archive, spanning from 1893 until today.
- Storming the Court: How a Band of Yale Law Students Sued the President—And Won by Brandt Goldstein.
- Verbrechen (Crime) by German lawyer Friedrich von Schirach. Although he stated that the cases presented were fictionalized accounts of his actual cases, those were later debunked.
Live-Action TV
(adaptations or original works)
- Ally McBeal
- All Rise
- American Crime Story
- Arrow (the first two seasons, plus a Genre Throwback in the fourth)
- Better Call Saul
- Billions
- Bluff City Law
- Boston Legal
- Bull
- Burden of Truth
- Century City, court cases from the future
- Chicago Justice
- Conviction
- Conviction (2016)
- Crownies
- Damages, though it has virtually no scenes in actual courtrooms
- Daredevil (2015)
- The Defenders (1961)
- The Defenders (2010)
- The Deep End
- The Devil Judge
- Doubt
- Equal Justice
- Extraordinary Attorney Woo
- Fairly Legal
- Family Law
- Family Law (2021)
- The Firm
- First Monday
- For the People
- Franklin & Bash
- Garrow's Law
- The Good Wife
- The Grinder
- Harry's Law
- How to Get Away with Murder
- JAG
- The Australian series Janus.
- Judge John Deed
- Judging Amy
- Just Cause
- Justice
- Kingdom (2007)
- L.A. Law
- Law & Order
- The second half of Law & Order (See Police Procedural for the first half)
- Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (especially in seasons where there is an A.D.A. main character)
- Law & Order: Trial by Jury
- Law & Order: UK
- Law & Order: LA
- Legal V: Ex-lawyer, Shoko Takanashi
- The Lyon's Den
- Made in Jersey
- Matlock
- Murder One
- The Night Of covers Police Procedural as well as jail and law procedural.
- Nuremberg
- Outlaw (2010)
- Partners For Justice
- The Practice
- Perry Mason. 80 novels. Ur-example and Trope Codifier in Television.
- Petrocelli
- Raising the Bar
- Rumpole of the Bailey
- Sad Cypress . An Agatha Christie novel adapted for Radio and Television.
- Shark
- She-Hulk: Attorney at Law: Mixed with the superhero genre and a Sitcom.
- Shots Fired, some partial involvement of a prosecutor investing potential shooting motivated by race.
- Silk
- Street Legal
- Suits, which is fairly unique in that a) it's about corporate lawyers and civil suits and b) the characters have a stated desire to avoid the courtroom at all costs.
- Walker, Texas Ranger
- The Whole Truth
- The Wire Occasionally, with emphasis on the police-attorneys collaboration.
- This is Wonderland
Theatre
- The Andersonville Trial
- The Broken Jug (Der zerbrochne Krug) by Heinrich von Kleist. The central element is a trial in a rural court.
- Chicago, in part, as it cover's Roxy Hart's trial for the murder of her lover in a crime of passion.
- A Man for All Seasons, and its film adaptation.
- Parade, a Broadway musical set around the murder trial of an innocent man.
Video Games / Visual Novels
Webcomics
- Supernatural Law, which combines this genre with Urban Fantasy.
Web Videos
Western Animation
