April 19, 2013

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For This I Went to Law School?

I can’t say for sure, but I think most lawyers who grew up in the 1950s or 60s have at one time or another wanted to sue Perry Mason for fraud. However, Mason has avoided all lawsuits through the convenient ploy of being a fictional character.

Perry Mason came to us through the pen of one Earle Stanley Gardner, who wrote more than 80 novels beginning in 1933. There were Perry Mason movies and radio drama; and, most famously there was Raymond Burr playing Mason on a long running television series and several made for TV movies. The plot of each episode was the same: Perry Mason’s client was accused of a crime (usually murder); Mason investigated the facts; the case came to trial; at the trial, Mason introduced unexpected evidence causing the actual criminal (almost always someone other than his client) to confess.

That may sound tedious now, but it was not. Perry Mason may have been the best mystery series ever. The programs also showed the glamor of a lawyer’s life, as he always had interesting cases with clients who were innocent and could afford to pay without complaint for a good defense; he had to spend little time in the office doing tedious paper work, which would have taken away from his investigating time; and the trials were always dramatic, exciting and ended with justice triumphant.

What was not to like? To top it all off, my initials are “L.A.W.” and some good friends of mine, who worked at the law school library while I was in college, told me how well I would fit in with the law students. It was fated. I took a year after I graduated college to decide if it would be wise to act against fate and do something different with my life, but everyone else knew what was going to happen. Continue reading →