The Top 10 Best Movie Lawyers
5. Ruth Bader Ginsberg- On the Basis of Sex
Hopefully, all of you have heard of the next person on this list of movie lawyers. Before she was a tough as nails Supreme Court Justice, Ruth Bader Ginsberg was an attorney struggling to be taken seriously among her peers. Despite being as qualified (and arguably smarter) than the boys club that tried to keep her down, she started an uphill battle for legal equality between the sexes. She’s a brilliant lawyer with a temper that refuses to back down no matter what and goes on to become easily one of the most important and influential women of all time. That being said, I have to give a shout out to her husband, Martin Ginsburg (Armie Hammer), who never doubts his wife even when she doubts herself. That’s husband material for ya, right there.
4. Lieutenant Daniel Kaffee- A Few Good Men
Tom Cruise is no stranger to playing lawyers in movies, but perhaps his most memorable performance was from the military film A Few Good Men. In it, he plays a lackadaisical attorney assigned to a case involving two Marines accused of murder. Initially, he’s uninterested in actually doing any work and has to be pushed by his fellow legal council (Demi Moore) to actually do his job. Deciding to fight for those that can’t defend themselves, Kaffee discovers a deep-rooted conspiracy that implicates a Colonel in the matter. The film ends in one of the most dramatic courtroom sequences of all time with the iconic line “You can’t handle the truth!”
3. Jake Tyler Brigance- A Time to Kill
Matthew McConaughey makes another appearance on this list of movie lawyers, this time as an honest to goodness good guy. A Time to Kill focuses on the trial of a father facing charges for murdering the men who raped and beat his 10-year-old daughter before they can be acquitted for their crimes. You might be wondering how these two men could possibly be set free for such a crime. Well, the girl was black, the men were white, and it was Mississippi. With the father facing charges, Brigance takes the case to defend the father and finds himself facing not just the racist bumpkins of the jury and court, but also the Ku Klux Klan. Fortunately, Brigance is one of the few white guys in his town that isn’t total garbage and he fights with everything he has to help clear his client’s name.
2. Joe Miller- Philidelphia
Like a few of the actors on this list of movie lawyers, Denzel Washington has played an attorney a few times. For my money though, Joe Miller is one of his best roles of all time. Miller agrees to represent a fellow attorney, Andrew Beckett (Tom Hanks) in a wrongful termination suit against a huge law firm. Why was Beckett fired, you ask? Well, in the 90s homophobia was pretty much running unchecked, especially given the HIV epidemic at the time. Beckett was an incredible lawyer, but because he was a homosexual suffering from the disease, he gets kicked to the curb. Miller himself refused it initially because of his own biases, but seeing the parallels between Beckett’s case and the racism he’s faced, he decides to represent him to the best of his abilities.