In the past 20 years or so, teaching specific legal ethics points through the use of movie scenes has become pretty popular. I encourage that practice.
When one thinks of lawyers and movies, the usual suspects include, of course, To Kill a Mockingbird, A Few Good Men, Witness for the Prosecution, The Firm, and My Cousin Vinny.
To Kill a Mockingbird typically is invoked for the general principle of a lawyer bravely (zealously) standing up for their client. With respect to legal ethics, A Few Good Men includes the interesting feature of a lawyer bluffing a hostile witness about having other witnesses who can be called to present extrinsic evidence to contradict or impeach.
I could talk about the main legal ethics issue raised by Witness for the Prosecution, but that point is a spoiler. The Firm is an organized crime movie with a plot that somehow manages to turn largely on client confidentiality and attorney-client privilege issues.
In My Cousin Vinny, Vinny Gambini takes on a capital case defense he is not competent to handle, and he lies about his experience to the judge, but I guess that in this instance we are supposed to conclude that all’s well that ends well. See, e.g., American Bar Association (ABA) Model Rule of Professional Conduct (MRPC) 1.1 (Competence), 1.3 (Diligence) and Comment [1] (zealous representation), 1.4 (Communications), 3.3 (Candor Toward the Tribunal).
Here are six other movies that intersect with legal ethics in interesting ways:
The 1996 legal thriller The Chamber starring Gene Hackman and Chris O’Donnell presents from a much more serious point of view than My Cousin Vinny the question of a young and inexperienced lawyer’s competence to handle a capital case. The 1997 legal drama The Rainmaker starring Matt Damon presents the same issue with respect to a high stakes civil case.
The 1959 legal drama Anatomy of a Murder starring James Stewart, George C. Scott, Ben Gazzara, and Lee Remick has some sophisticated scenes about a criminal defense lawyer interviewing their client and calling their client as a witness while the lawyer seeks to avoid knowingly putting on false testimony. Keep in mind, though, that a criminal defense attorney operates to some degree under special ethics rules intended to ensure that a defendant receives due process. See, e.g., ABA MRPC 3.1 and Comment [3].
The 1991 legal drama Class Action starring Gene Hackman and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio raises the question of whether and when immediate family (here, a father and daughter) can be opposing counsel. See, e.g., ABA MRPC 1.7 (Conflict of Interest: Current Clients). The movie also has a good scene in which a evidentiary motion is argued and issues of the scope of the corporate attorney-client privilege and of who an opposing lawyer may contact within a represented corporation are touched upon. See, e.g., ABA MRPC 4.2 (Communication With Person Represented by Counsel) and Comment [7], 3.4 (Fairness to Opposing Party and Counsel), and 4.4 (Respect for Rights of Third Persons. The movie also has another profound legal ethics issue that is another spoiler.
The 1996 legal drama Ghosts of Mississippi starring Alec Baldwin is a very intense movie, but it also features the mundane but common issue of a lawyer being so focused on or burdened by a single case or particular cases that they struggle with handling their work for, and timely communicating with, their other clients. See, e.g., ABA MRPC 1.3, 1.4.
Finally, the 1994 thriller The Client starring Susan Sarandon and Tommy Lee Jones presents stark legal issues about a lawyer interviewing a child in the absence of their parent or guardian and one party consent to surreptitious tape recording of a conversation. See, e.g., ABA Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility Formal Opinion 01 422 (June 24, 2001) (Electronic Recording by Lawyers Without the Knowledge of All Participants).