A law student saying that they watch Law and Order to study probably sounds like a cheap excuse to justify watching TV instead of actually studying. That’s how it started for me, but I found out that it actually can help me study for my criminal law exam in a few ways.
Before I get into how I use it to study, you need to understand how law exams work. The bulk of law exams contain fact pattern questions. Basically, we are given a hypothetical scenario (sometimes based on a real case). We need to identify the issues and apply the appropriate legal principles to those issues. For example, I may be given a set of facts describing how the police questioned a suspect and I have to consider what legal principles should be considered when deciding if what the police did was lawful.
You might be thinking “but Adrienne, Law and Order is set in America! This is Canada, so the law is different!” You’d be right, but the it’s not the substantive law that helps me. Here are just a few ways that I use Law and Order to study:
Each episode is basically a fact pattern question
Law and Order episodes provide new scenarios each episode that require the police to use various investigative techniques to determine who committed the crime. This means that while watching I can jot down all the issues I see based on what I’ve learned in my criminal law class. While the rules may be different in America, that doesn’t mean that I can’t consider how Canadian laws might apply to the scenario depicted in the episode. I can consider whether the searches the detectives conduct are lawful or whether they would meet the standard necessary to arrest or detain a suspect. The episodes often combine a lot of issues since they take us through the entire investigative and trial process, so I can get practice with many different issues that I’ve learned about over the semester.
(my very messy analysis of an episode)
Sometimes they talk about legal doctrine
The average viewer probably doesn’t spend a lot of time considering how the prosecutors manage to get their conviction but, in some episodes if you take a look at what they do it can be interesting. Often times, they’re faced with a situation where a judge excludes evidence due to issues with police conduct and they’re still stuck trying to meet the high standard of “beyond a reasonable doubt” to get a conviction. Now I’ll be the first to admit they definitely do not meet that standard all the time but observing their reasoning considering helps sharpen my legal reasoning.
They discuss relevant legal issues
Particularly in the older episodes of the original Law and Order, we see characters grapple with complex legal issues. There are many points where we see the prosecutors struggling with applying laws that they don’t think are just. Sometimes they have to explain to victims’ families that they can’t seek a certain punishment or subvert the rule of law even if doing so would create a more morally just result. These are the kinds of issues that lawyers are constantly struggling with and that the legal community has been discussing for years. Seeing these kinds of debates personified in entertainment allows me to better understand all sides and consider my own views on these issues (which I may be asked about in an exam).
As I gear up for my first round of law school exams, it’s nice to have a fun way to study that doesn’t really feel like studying. In a way my relationship with Law and Order has come full circle. It’s a show I grew up on and it gave me the idea to consider law school back when I was in first year and didn’t really know what I wanted to do. Now that I’m finally here, I get to look back on the show and use it to help me prepare for becoming a real lawyer. Don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot that’s unrealistic about it (like how the trials are super quick and they get a court date right after the accused is charged) but it’s still fun to watch and fills me with nostalgia every time.