rookie lawyer way out of my league, defending a black man, charged with murder, looking at an all white jury. and i kept thinking, what would atticus finch do now? what would atticus finch do now? a few years later when i began secretly writing my first novel, i was drawn back to "to kill a mockingbird" for the incredible storytelling ability of harper lee, for the timeless themes, the justice and loss of innocence, for the humor, but most importantly for the character of atticus finch. ..

>> it is a prized position. i have a place for it on the wall, and today i will add it next to this award here. now that i have two earlier, dean gave me another signed copy of "to kill a mockingbird." i have two kids, and i love to collect old books. and they're constantly wickerring about who gets -- bickering about who gets what. now i have two copies thanks to you. [laughter] thank you all for this award. [applause] >> thank you, john. appreciate your remarks very much. it's now time for a panel discussion comparing the two

books, exploring their place in legal literature and their impact. it'll be moderated by david ball catch shi -- baldacci. dahlia lithwick writes supreme court dispatches at "slate" and has been a guest columnist for "the new york times" op-ed page. and also thane rosenbaum, the distinguished lecture and law and director of the forum on law, culture and society, and himself the author of several highly-regarded novels, so i'll turn it over to david at this point. >> i want to add my congratulations to john. i was one of those very astute judges who picked "the confession" as a book that was much deserving this award. it was a stiff competition, but i think all the judges agreed when we had our conference call and went over the books in detail that john's book really rose head and shoulders above

the other books that were very fine books in their own respect. it is eminently readable and deals with substantive issues in a way i think that makes everyone or should make everyone who reads the book think about it. the next event john and i will be doing in october next year, or next month in yale, yale university to feature and highlight another iconic figure in american literature, mark twain. it's a fundraiser for the mark twain museum. jodi pick cult is going to join us, and if you want to go to it, please, do. all the funds go to the mark twain house and museum. if we can't celebrate writers like mark twain and harper lee, we're doing something wrong. john will let us know if we get things wrong, i'm sure. i have a series of questions here, but i really, i'll ask the questions, but i think we should have a free flow of dialogue,

and i won't call on any one person to answer, please, just feel free to jump in. i like this question, and i'm going to start wit. with it. how is the lawyer portrayed in popular fiction changed in the 50 years since atticus finch? he's the lawyer we used to all have at least one time in our lives when being accused of a really bad crime because he's sort of the guy that would be there for us. he stands for what's good and pure, and he seems to be ideal in a sense it's hard to understand how a real person can be that. so the question how has lawyers portrayed in popular fiction changed in the 50 year since atticus finch? >> okay. everyone's looking at me. >> yes, please go. >> well, for one thing, atticus lynch is a flawless character. and for many people who read "to kill a mockingbird," that's some of the complexity, you have a character that's too good.

so good at the end he's willing to have his own son prosecuted for the voluntary manslaughter of the most evil man in all of alabama. you know, overly righteous, and now we see characters with much more complexity, characters who have flaws, who are, in fact, using the law many john grisham characters fall into this quality, are using the case as a way to redeem themselves. it's a way for them to find themselves through the law. atticus was actually quite clear who he was as a father, as a town legislator, who he was as a native son of alabama. you know, if you look at art today, the characters are as lost as their clients, and we find them with struggling with divorce and alcoholism and real, you know, human struggles, and that makes it a huge difference between the last 50 years that we see characters with much more

texture and much more true humanity. morris? >> i think what i've seen is the campaign against lawyers, especially trial lawyers, by the political right in america and the u.s. chamber of commerce and others finding its way in fiction. back in the time when i started practicing law, we department, we didn't see -- we didn't see lawyers condemned as lawyers and trial lawyers. they were honored people. in fact, when you had a capital murder case in the country, the person usually indigent, the finest lawyers would be appointed and/or volunteer to represent this person as it was this this case here. i think the legal profession is really condemned today in many ways, and you see that creeping into fiction also. you know, i speak to a lot of lu students -- law students around, and i always tell them, you know, that if they read, you

know, henry vi, they would read that, you know, if tyranny is to prevail, you must first kill all the lawyers. and that first part of that shakespeare play is omitted today. and i think john grisham has helped put it back in place. >> dahlia. >> i might just add and maybe it's a hybrid of the two points that have been made, but i think that there's a sense that lawyers and fiction today are working against immutable machines in a way they department use to be. and i think one of the things you don't see anymore is lawyers who feel that their firm is a good place to be, lawyers who feel that the government is a good place to be. there's a sense that there is this leviathan structure that's fundamentally corrupt, and i think that goes to some of these points about, you know, real questions about the integrity of the legal system. but i think in addition to

always having a drink in their hand, you know, in modern fiction every lawyer's got a drink in their hand, male and female. but i think they're also just very, very disaffected and us from tritted -- frustrated and broken and hopeless, and i think it goes to a sense that, you know, the legal system isn't respected and rayfied the way it once was. >> i'm going to try to put a positive spin on this. [laughter] >> that would be helpful, thank you. >> over the last 50 years, actually, i think one of the really good and positive attributes of fiction in the time frame that we're talking about is an appreciation and understanding of the legal system. it is a complex but very critical part of our life in this country. it's the foundation for our democracy. and to have authors who

understand it and put it in the context of real-life situations makes it appreciated. but more importantly, it's an educational tool. i find that those who read the book who are not lawyers come away with a much deeper understanding and appreciation of our legal system. and it is pretty good. more so and in many ways we can be critical of it because we expect so much from it. as we should. but by the same token, i think that we are, we benefit a great deal from the honesty that surrounds the purpose for the legal system. when you, when you think about the use of juries as well, you understand that this is our system. it is not somebody else's system. and we own this system.

and to the extent that it is a system that judges and passes judgment on very complex and sometimes life-altering situations, i think when we've learned -- what we've learned from the books is that it is, it's better to have it than not. >> well, that covered about all the other nine questions i had on my piece of paper. [laughter] we'll get more organized with this question. bob, we'll start with you again and work this way. follow a question to that that i had, thrillers and legal thrillers in general are very popular with mass audiences even though a lot of people have disdain for the legal profession, i think we've seen that, they're fascinate with the that world. and we see that with movies and with books. let's -- if you could talk to why you think that fascination aside from the fact that we learn things about the legal system, what is built in the

legal system that fascinates so many people on a broad basis they want to learn more about it and read books and watch movies about it? >> well, particularly the ones that we choose to exemplify, they're game changers. they're game changers for society, for our attitudes, for the way we see ourselves, and they, in many cases, when you see an outcome that goes against the grain but preserves the institution of a just system, you want to root for it. and you want to say to yourself, that's this country. that's our country. um, and i'm proud of the fact that in this environment, in this society you can still root for the underdog and win. it's the only place that the president of the united states has the possibility of being tried. you don't see that in other countries.

not the head of state. and if it does happen, it's a rare occasion. but in this country if you choose to break the law, you're just as susceptible to being tried as anybody else. this is the statement that chesterfield smith who made who was a former president of the aba, is that no person is above the law really rings true, i think, in the examples that we see, the movies that we see. and the most important thing is that even without means there's a preservation of civil liberties and civil rights in this system. >> thane. >> well, legal their tyes -- narratives, legal novels, legal dramas are a particularly american cultural touchstone. they are very much like, legal dramas are very much like the american westerns in terms of the public fascination. westerns, as we know, take place in the prairie, and they deal with lawlessness. but they're essentially about

the search for good and righteousness and to do what's just. and to make things right. and the legal system is a natural location, trials for, you know, good versus evil. you see, you know, cowboys on horses, and you see lawyers strutting in courtrooms delivering summations. you know, there's even movement in courtrooms, right? john grisham is the master of having people doing interest things including pouring a glass of water. all of a sudden this idea that there is an action that's taking place, but it's an action that really is the same kind of dramatic tension that there's some injustice that's taken place, and the audience can't sit still until some resolution takes place. and it's the courtroom setting does it in a way that is much more closed. but it does it with the same kind of dramatic tension and

excitement. anyone who's read "the confession," this new novel, know it really is a page turner. and, you know, who knew, right? that something like a legal trial could become so fascinating to american culture that, in fact, even during the day all television soap operas are off, lost their places in favor of, you know, judge judy and judge alex and the people's court. obviously, there's some, you know, consumer demand to see, to see a human resolution to conflict and to be able to make distinctions between right and wrong. people are, obviously, longing for this. perhaps they're not actually seeing it this the law, and they see it on daytime tv and in reading, you know, david and john's book. >> i would probably double down on the spaghetti western western and say it's also the morality play.

it's the religious treatise. i think to the extent that we have a church in this country, it's the supreme court. to the extent that we have a foundational religious text, it is the constitution. and i think sometimes at our peril we with look at those things as substitutes for religion. and i think that this is justice. this is morality. and this is, you know, the trial or even, you know, i think even csi and hunting down the criminal and, you know, beating him about the head until he confesses, that's all part of an an arc about morality. and we hope that this is a system that, you know, in the absence of a beneficent god is the next best thing we have, is a beany sent judge who will do the right thing and make moral choices and vindicate justice and make the world fair. so it just seems to me that, um, you know, i've always said and maybe it's because i cover the supreme court, i think we are

the most religious secular society in the world. we pretend to not be religious, but we revere the law in place of religion. and so it seems to me that that arc that we trace over and over even on judge judy, even on nancy grace, even on "law and order," that's the arc of some system that is going to make a world make sense and make justice prevail. >> when i was in law school, i was reading the old cases, and i was struck with how the history of the united states has been decided in many ways after the constitution, etc., by legal cases. dred scott, board of education. it was the thing that made the distinction. i think that still happens today. i mean, we just got through witnessing the troy davis situation, and i don't know what's going to be the next step. president carter finally came out posed to the death penalty, and we saw all the machinations

that went into that. and it could be, hopefully, the beginning of the end of the death penalty in the united states. hopefully. and then you have, you know, i guess, reality television with the casey anthony television and nancy grace. it's amazing, but people, obviously, are in it for the soap opera fix too. but i think the u.s. supreme court that you cover, you know, we're waiting for every decision whether it's roe v. wade or whether it's the right for an indigent to have counsel. so it's part of -- i think it's in many ways part of the whole legislative system that we see acted out in court. >> you know, it's said that fiction is only bound by plausibility. and people can suspend disbelief, but you have to have the element of -- not that it did happen, but it could happen. and it seems in popular fiction these days that the evil has gotten bigger, the conspiracies

have gotten broader, and what people are willing to believe might happen at least in the fictional situation has gotten bigger. now, i guess the question is, i'll start with you, morris, is that a reflection on the legal system, the lawyers who inhabit that or society as a whole that they will accept many things that could happen in fiction and maybe in real life more so than the population might have accepted that being possible 50 or 60 years ago? >> i think, i think it has a lot to do with -- i'm not sure if that's really true. i mean, my favorite books are the iliad and the odyssey, and i don't have to tell you, it's a lot of suspending disbelief -- [laughter] and i still think there hasn't been any books written since then, no disrespect to you and john. you can go back and find all your stories there, and when i recently read cleopatra, that was affirmed. i do think, though, with the advent of reality television and

talking heads and with the too many commercials that can make war heros into cowards like we saw the presidential election, if you spend enough money, the truth can be suspended or disbelief. i'm really proud that we have great writers, and in fact, if there was any way to, i think that i would be voting as a panel member. i think i told ken this. because i don't know how you got ahold of john's book, but i said, let's give john the lifetime achievement award because you can take any of his books, "the client," and the rest of them for the contributions they made for the cause of justice. >> i think i'm also going to fight the hypothetical, if that's okay. i'm going to fight the hypothetical. but i think that it's, in fact, the case that fiction and just

the enormity of the kinds of things that john writes about that seem like they can't possibly be true are, in fact, true and that books that look like this can't possibly happen. i have the great fortune of reading this book this week while i was trying to cover duane buck and troy davis for "slate." and can you imagine traveling back and forth between a fictional book about a possibly innocent man being sent to his death by a judicial system and a prosecutorial system that just don't care. and watching it happen in front of your very eyes. and they meshed to the point that i literally couldn't remember from day-to-day as this week went on, and i confess i didn't have too much sleep, but i couldn't remember what i had read from the trial transcript and what i had read from the confession. and i think one of the things john does so well is he takes

these extraordinary questions, what request if you bought a supreme court justice, and brings them into themes that they -- it's trying to persuade read earth that -- readers that this may have just happened. >> but it is true we arelying in a -- living in a culture where people no longer feel shocked by anything. we live in a shockless, shock-proof society. you know, cnn very shortly within an hour or so after the fall of the world trade center stopped showing the two buildings falling dun. i don't know if you -- down. i don't know if you remember, for the first hour you saw it all the time. somebody must have called up cnn and said, you know, cut it out. the more you show this, the more you make people desensitized,

and this needs to be outrageous. it can't be something that it seems as if you saw in a film. and so i think the culture has made us much more sip call and much more -- cynical and much more willing to believe anything because we're really no longer shocked. when we deal with, say, for instance, john frisch sham novel -- grab sham novels, i think it's true you're getting much close or to what morris dees said about conventional narratives, good/evil and morality plays. and in that sense, you know, the legal system with all due respect to my good friend robert grey, is not featured in it best light. that it's a perfect setting for a cynical culture to look as dahlia said at the legal system asthma chien, asthma sheen, as the ultimate boo radially.

once you become part of the system, you can never leave. and that is the perception that we all have about the legal system, and i think that it anytimes in to -- fits in to a ip cynical culture in which we don't believe in our institutions. god has failed us, government has failed us and now judges and lawyers as well. >> i'm not sure what i can add to that particular observation. but it, i think each one, each panelist has brought a perspective that i believe is true. i think, by the way, dave it's a good question that you asked. and we have changed as a society. we are never going to be the same not just because of things like 9/11, but because everything is realtime. and so you see the underbelly of a problem or a conflict immediately. there's no time to spin it.

there's not a lot of time to wait and and recast it or do some revisionist history on it. it's there. it is right in front of us. and people, i think, are a lot more -- we say cynical, i think it's more realistic that this could happen. i think you can draw a very interesting scenario, set of facts, circumstances, and people will say, that's possible. i mean, i can ay'all eyes in my mind as a person that to something i saw or just read about on the internet. it's not that wild, it's not that far out anymore as it used to be. i mean, it was interesting, i saw an episode of the twilight zone which was a sitcom at one time. that's not crazy. that was really, that's like somebody made that in a shoe box and put it out.

but back then it was, are you kidding me? that could be, that's really fantastic. and we are -- but the desensetyization is true. we really are in a much more real world that when things are realtime, the way we analyze problems and the way we look at circumstances is so much different than when we first, than when "to kill a mockingbird" first came out. and over the years we have learned that anything is possible. i mean, just anything. >> yeah. sometimes it's almost a race to the bottom because i -- one lament i hear in the publishing industry is what thrilled even five years ago doesn't necessarily thrill people anymore. and you're sort of constantly pressured to come up with the more outlandish situation. i've always thought a good story comes from elements that have

always existed and you tell it well, and you tell a story about people and situations that are under pressure and high stakes are there that make people care about what's going to happen to them. but this get toss the next question. in both "the confession" and "to kill a mockingbird," there there issues of faith. the minister in the confession, and there's a line in the book where atticus tells scout that he couldn't go to church and worship if he didn't defend tom robinson in this very segregationist type of structure. so the question is what role does faith pay, or should faith play a role in social justice? robert, we'll start with you. >> i think you've got to start start anything the middle. >> i either give you too much time to think or no time at all. [laughter] >> well, you know, we are a faith-based culture. and i think it has a lot to do with how we view our role,

particularly, i think, lawyers. there's a very high bar, there's a very high expectation that notwithstanding the opportunity to take advantage of the situation that there are certain principles and ethical standards and that people have faith in the fact that you will act upon those. for the preservation of justice. and i think by and large that works. there are, clearly, exceptions to that rule, and there are situations that have bad results as a result of prosecutors doing bad things. defense lawyers not doing good things. judges being indifferent to things that change the outcome and affect people's lives in a very adverse way sometimes. but when you look at that in the totality, and that's what i think the book does or the

stories do, is they put you in the position of saying while, yes, bad things can happen, what principles and -- that we stand for as a country and that we expect our lawyers to adhere to involve a degree of faith that, once given, is usually transformed into a just decision and opportunity, i think, for us to right wrong in this country. and by and large, you know, i must be the eternal optimist on this panel, but i think that that's why this system has stayed intact as long as it has, vis-a-vis other systems around the world. >> thane. >> you know, i think it's beyond faith. it goes to broader notions of morality. it's not just that atticus tells

scout that he can't go to church if he doesn't represent tom robinson, he tells her numbers of things. he tells her i can't parent you, i can't have you do your chores. i can't walk down the street, i wouldn't be able to function as a son of this state. i couldn't represent the town in the legislature. you know, law students are taught to achieve the correct legal result. they're not taught to think about fundamental distinctions between right and wrong and common human courtesies and decencies. that's what atticus is about. he transcends what he learned at law school. he went beyond what you taught him, and he says, no, i understand the correct legal result, but it's also more important for me to do what's right. and i think that idea is also what drive t so much of this fiction. the john grisham characters when

you think about one of my favorite books, "the rainmaker." you know, these are people who are tireless, energy energetic crusaders. morris dees, the real life people who just do the right thing. they just do the right 24eu7bg. and we don't teach law students to do that, so it's beyond faith. it's about asking them to go beyond what the law is and to just fight for the right things, the most righteous crusading cause. and that's, you know, why people -- that's why these characters stand out, that's why real-life heros like morris dees stand out, because they're not doing what everyone else is doing. they're going beyond what everyone else is doing. >> and i do think there is, you know, it's interesting that atticus is a man of faith, a man who goes to church, you know? in the confession, i think we have the few characters who don't go to church are the lawyers. [laughter] and i do think it goes to, so

now i'm positing drunk, atheist lawyers. what a nightmare. i went to law school not that long ago, and religion is something you don't talk about. religion has been completely decoupled from both the practice of law and the ways we think about the law. i think this ways that, you know, as thane points out are very profound in terms of the effect of how we practice, but i do think it also quos to this idea -- goes to this idea that lawyers are the outsiders now. you know, the man of faith is dragged to an execution to witness it just the way, you know, scout witnesses it. that's how we're accessing it, through the outsider who is the perp of faith. so i think it's that delinking of the lawyer and his or her faith that's a really interesting shift generationally. and i think it's, you know, layered over that there is a whole lot of people who go to law school seeking the kind of

moral outcome that they may have once sought from their faith. and so they believe i'm going to use this mechanical legal system to make the world god and fair and just in the way they may have thought about religion, and i think that same point is exactly right which is the legal system cannot at the end of the day deliver you the kind of outt comes you might seek from a religious system. >> morris? >> to me, it was just real. and even though i probably strayed from my southern baptist release at the time, it was my

faith had everything to do with what i did. starting at the university of alabama when they tried to integrate it, and they ran -- [inaudible] off in my sunday school class the next week, you know, i'm sure they didn't want me to be there, but i said, hey, i read a chapter in first john and i say how can you say you love man -- gosh, no, everybody wanted me off this cam but. so they -- i've tried over 50 death penalty cases myself, and it's a very traumatic thing to be. and even though i've now probably spent more time in the sin dog than i do at the baptist church, but i still appreciate my beginnings. i don't think i ever closed an argument in a case that i don't talk about the fact that the

jury's sitting a temple of justice. and i use that idea that you earlier stated in trying to get them to understand that that's what, that's what this whole justice system's about. there's no question that we have 4040 lawyers at -- 40 lawyers at this end, and thank you for your fine compliments, but i get a lot of credit for what other good people do. and they have all different types of faith and relief. some of my own employees, we used to file suit to protect the ten commandments by the alabama supreme court. it was snuck in there in the middle of the night, and that to fended me greatly. and a lot of people thought that i was doing something sacrilegious. but i see the church i go to, i go there every day, and i worship st. mattress on sunday morning. thank you. [laughter] there are.

>> um, atticus finch was a lawyer from the south, and many of john grisham's characters are from the south. now, how is the lawyer, particularly the trial lawyer per sued differently in the south than -- per sued perceived differently in the south? thane, i'll start with you this time. >> because i'm a northern jewish guy. [laughter] >> exactly.

>> as opposed to a kohl -- cog in a machine. our cultural perception is that the southern lawyer does it better, is more likable, more winning, more like us. and can i think the presentation of, you know, yankee lawyers -- [laughter] is, you know, that they're more mechanical, more thorough, less presenting their own, you know, personal style.

and yet when you think of other aspects of great fiction, richard wright's "native son," a chicago portrait. but, again, you just get a sense that he represented communists. you don't get a sense of, you know, was it he ate hot dogs all day? there's something about the way we see southern lawyers, that they're off watching a baseball game, they're more human to us. and i think they become, for that iraq, much more -- reason, much more interesting characters. [inaudible conversations] [laughter] >> he did a good job. >> yeah, but his best moment was in the south. >> that's my point. that's my point. [laughter] >> right. >> that's good. it has always been, i think, the case that if you are going to try a case in the south, you better get somebody from that town to try it with you.

and it was always the case that the northern firm would come in with two partners, three associates and four paralegals. and they would take up that half of the courtroom against this southern, down home lawyer whose tie looked like it had yesterday's supper on it and a few button missing off the shirt and maybe mismatched socks and the like, and he just would say, well, i just am going to try to do the best i can against the army that's standing -- that's sitting over there. and the jury got it all in that one statement. it's david against goliath was always the setup. and it, and it was always fascinating. it always warmed our hearts. and it always gave us this idea of the underdog, the southern

lawyer who was uncouth and very little sophistication, had to go up against the wall street lawyers. add the end of the day, ended up with the verdict. and they all were scratching their heads like how in the world did that happen? and when you saw the jury listening to the lawyers, they were always -- when the southern lawyer was talking, would talk about experiences they both had. and you would get this nodding of the head, well, yes, that's exactly right. and the northern lawyer would get up and says, well, this is a very complex case, and the heads would go the other way. it's like, i don't think so. [laughter] but we've had a great -- this has been a great cultural experience, i think, in talking about the law and depicting lawyers. and it's a great example, i think, that you raise when you

do that about the differences of culture. culture professionally in our country. and how you went to -- you could go get the same legal education, but you could have a whole different outlook about how to try a case. >> well, you know, i grew up in the south, and when i went into court with the name ball catch shi, i had to bring another southerner with me. [laughter] and i got used to being call mr. baldwin over and over and over again by the judge which was okay, but, you know -- >> i have two quick responses, and i'll try to make them quick. i think one of the reasons we're so fascinated by the southern lawyers, because it's a portal into talking about race. t really just an incredible -- it's really just an incredible god-given plot device to talk about these huge, huge issues of the tension between the law and mob values and what a community thinks about itself and what a community values. and there's simply no better way to do that than to map it onto a

southern lawyer and sort of let it unspool. and i think that's one of the reasons both these books are so good at talking about things that still all these years later we can't talk about very deftly, but we can write about it if we have a southern lawyer to light the way. the other thing -- and now i'm speaking as a jewish canadian on the panel. [laughter] in my vast experience of living in char lotsville which is kind of the south that i think it's not just north/south, i think it's big city/small town. and i think this goes to something that robert is saying that is so fundamental which is, and i think it's one of the reasons "the confession is such a powerful book. big city lawyers are very different creatures than rural lawyers, and this is a book about a bunch of people who all know each other, their kids play football together, they've known each other all their lives, they have repeated relationships with each other over and over and

over. and you will see in small towns that's how the bar functions. it's a very different thing than how the bar functions in big cities where you may or may not ever see the person across the court if from you ever again. and so i think this is a really interesting and, i think, powerful way of talking about people who have relationships with each other. not just north/south. i think it has a lot more to do with communities where there are repeat players who have stereotypes about each other, who have longstanding both trust issues and doubt issues, but also friendships. i think that is really what i think lights up in this book is that these are people who both love each other and hate each other because they all live on top of each other. >> wow. if you watch the watergate, you might remember a character named richard nixon, but probably sam irving would stand out in most people's minds as a hero in that book.

once i had a case in oregon, and the lawyer and my co-counsel said they're not going to get with your southern accent out here. and i said, well, let me try, you know. and so we did the case, and i think one of the things that i picked up from the small town courtroom lawyers to to me are my heros that i've watched is that they're great storytellers, and they're able to tell stories. and those stories resonate all over the united states, not just in, not just in the deep south. but this case was against the aryan nations, and i have a brilliant jewish boss, law partner, richard cohen, and so he, he's really -- he went to the best law schools and, you know, columbia, harvard, all that stuff. and he always, you know, says all the 50 cent words that i need to know and all the objections and all. but during the case the lawyer for the aryan nations, their people had beaten up some innocent people going by, and we was trying to take the come

pound away from them in idaho. i got objected to every time i got some of the evidence, i just kept on going until the judge gave up and let me in. and ended up with a substantial verdict, and the lawyer for the aryan nations and said, i'll tell you, that richard cohen is a great lawyer. morris dees does not know anything about law, all he does is tell stories. [laughter] you got it. so i think the storytelling is a big part of it, and i can testify that it works all over the united states. and, you know, this character of bobby lee cook from summerville, georgia, and he's one of the greatest lawyers you'll ever, ever now. and just a quick note, if i might, i think that, first of all, there's a move to close the courthouse door. and when i go to speak to the law students at alabama, can't lock them all in, they can't get

out during freshman orientation, so i get to indoctrinate them a little bit. and i always tell them, walk down the hall to the courtroom. and when you get out of law school, you're going the put on your best preparation, you're going to get everything ready, and you're going to stand in front of -- and you're going to make your opening statement, you're going to say, and may it please the arbitrator. [laughter] and, unfortunately, that's the case. that's really the case. i do think we've got to really fight to keep the courtroom door open. and there's a conspiracy on this country, especially in civil courts, to shut the courtroom door because corporate america does not trust the jury. and, you know, i gave a talk once. you don't need to go to law school to learn -- [inaudible] just watching watch the movies. so i did that one year. what are your favorite movies? "to kill a mocking mockingbird. "how many of you came to law

school to represent people's rights? all the hands go up. what do you think about the philadelphia story or? that's a great story. i said, well, there'd be no trial on that today. and everybody, you know why? nobody knows why. because when that lawyer signed up for that law firm, he would have signed a binding arbitration agreement, he would never have had a trial. so i think it's important that these law books etch sides that theme -- emphasize that theme and keep the idea that we need to have the jury system. ask law students all the time, do you know what the sixth amendment is? well, everybody does, it's the right to a jury trial. the most of you, some of you may know what it means. i'm sure you know what it means. but it's a right to a jury trial in a civil case in any matter of $25 or more. that's just lost on those people up here in washington d.c. thank you. [laughter] >> among the many other things that are lost. we have a couple of minutes left. i'd like to open up questions from the floor for the panel. anybody have any questions?

are there lawyers in this room? we have no yes, questions? >> i have a question finish. >> we'll get a mic to you. >> you talk about these two books, "to kill a mockingbird "and "the confession," i was struck between the perspective of coming from a little girl and her friends and looking at her father being the hero, and then on the ore side in the "the confession" where you see procedure and practice and the football player being railroaded, basically, by giving a confession. the way that the police were able to lie to him and all these things. and i was just wondering, you know, i was thinking they got some process and not process, but in -- there are larger legal issues. it seems like due process is being taken away from us when you say arbitration. for instance, the drones killing

people overseas, american citizens, without due process. i just wondered if we could talk a little bit about that. >> wow. that is, it's a fundamental issue to the integrity, i think, of our justice system is due process. i don't know that we can -- we are in a very complex fight for civil society in this world. i don't know that you can make it all whittle down to due process. so i don't, i don't want to try to do that with the drones and the like. but i, but let me take your point and expand on it just this much. i think you hit a nerve when you say we may be putting due process in jeopardy. because if you don't have that,

then all of the other pillars in the structure of the justice system fall. and that's a critical element. it's a linchpin. and so it's -- you have hit, it might even be the achilles heel of the justice system. if you can't be assured that you're going to be treated fairly with the rules that we have set up, and if they're followed carefully by police, by prosecutors, by judges, you get to where you should go. may not like the outcome, but you will -- you can say i got fair day in court. and that is important. and if there's any way that anybody takes a shortcut to avoid a person getting that opportunity, then the system has failed. >> okay. thane? >> well, you know, that's the tricky thing about the constitution, right? i mean, the question is who does

it apply to, right? and there are people who are in this room and certainly in this district who would say that, you know, the drone campaign is outside the context of the constitution just like guantanamo bay is. that's the fundamental question that we've all been wrestling with for the last few years which is, you know, is it only limits to these very sort of, you know, insular, domestic settings of, you know, two american citizens, the kinds of things that become legal thrillers or what happens in the wider world when, you know, nations decide to avepg crimes midded against them, right? avenge crimes committed against them, right? i think the reason we have the patriot act is because everything in it would be otherwise unconstitutionalment i mean, that's why it's called the patriot act, so that everyone feels like you have to be a patriot, you know, to support it. and if you don't support it, what's wrong with you?

the surveillance act, right? these are things that would otherwise be unconstitutional, so we've taken steps to, or the government has taken steps to find a way around the constitution. you know, the more complicated issue is when they start to tell you that it is constitutional. it would be so much better if someone just was very honest. thisreally, really unconstituti, and that's why we have the patriot act. and then it would be at least a much more honest, common sense conversation. then people could say, yes, of course, the constitution doesn't work in areas of terrorism, so we have these things that are called patriot acts. or at least most of the country can have a conversation about what's really happening instead of the fiction that we always comport to a strict adherence to constitutional standards when we don't. we didn't for the japanese in world war ii, we department for people who had mownist affiliations in the 1950s. we don't do it for pedophiles

today. there are all sources of people for whom the constitution subject apply, and they're on a a -- [inaudible] at least let's be honest what we're doing. >> your problem is compounded because it's not simply we're losing our rights, it's that people don't know and don't care. and i think, you know, underlying your question is this very much harder question, you know, one of the bad thing about it being a supreme court reporter is that when you try to say, oh, my god, i'm setting my hair on fire, they just changed the pleading standards. you get, you know, dallas si-eyed stares, people just go on screen saver. and that's a problem because, you know -- and it's not just, you you know, mandatory arbitration, and it's not just statutes of limitation, and it's not just pleading standards. it's all these incredibly boring jargon-laden ways in which

americans are less and less free, and they don't know it. and i guess i would, you know, just say one of the things fiction can do is make americans know it and care about it in ways that even i as a journalist feel like i'm scraping to do largely unsuccess any every day. is and so it seems to me the real challenge is to convince americans that it really, really, really matters to them that their cell phone contract precludes them from going into a courtroom, and i don't think we're doing a very good job of that, you know, just talking about those things in this cup. >> morris. >> i'm going to pass on all those due process issues. [laughter] personally. i only went to two years of law school. i didn't have to take a bar exam. [laughter] three years undergraduate, four years e was out of there. i couldn't even get into alabama now, so i'm not much into that law stuff. [laughter] let me, i just want to saw this

as a parting shot more than anything. fiction's great, and "to kill a mockingbird's" great. but the book that john wrote, "the innocent man," is just as great. and it's a real-life situation, and i hope this community will consider books that are nonfiction too. who would not be moved by "my life in court" and so many books? and those are probably more frequently written than fiction books that arise to the level of the "the confession" or "to kill a mockingbird." >> yes. >> we live in a rarefied atmosphere when we talk about the united states supreme court and the supreme courts of many states. but for trial lawyers like me that have tried cases in different parts of the country, i see the courts, the working courts where the working people go and where all people have to go to try to resolve their disputes confronted with overwhelming issues, most of them economic. for lawyers it's very, very expensive to practice law.

the technology has changed, had law books, common sense, people he could talk to and investigators. today the costs of practicing law whether you're a big or small firm is an enormous one as are the burdens that face our trial court all over the country. and i think one of the challenges for us as lawyers and for us who write about the law is to try to address the issues that are beginning to overwhelm the court which is why they go to arbitration, and mediation takes year and years and years to bring a case to trial. and it costs so much money that most people can't afford it, and businesses don't want to pay it. so the muck issues are -- economic issues are pressing to the point where in the states i've tried case is the the people that don't have lawyers, that people are not represented by lawyers because they can't afford them x lawyers can't afford to just give their practice over to representing those people who maybe can't afford it. so it's an overall issue that i

think we as a society need to confront. our courts are wonderful, and our system is the best in the world, but the access to it is consistently getting too narrow because it's too expensive and the judges are absolutely overwhelmed with the volume of litigation, and it's taking everything away from the legal system and turning courts into kind of dispute resolvers that don't have either the time or resources for it. so i think lawyers as a profession and those who are otherwise involved as writing about lawyers or a court system need to try to give as much creative thought as possible to trying to make, to trying to make the court's accessible to people, to trying to give people access to the justice system which really does function better than any other system in the world. >> anybody want to comment on that? >> i want to echo two things. one is that when we look at how

we fund the institutions that preserve the way of life that we have, the democracy that we are we think is very special in our society, you don't do that by short changing the court. and if they are and should be the weakest branch of government because they should be nonpolitical. and, but to take advantage of, to put them in a disadvantaged position where only those who can afford it have access to it is not american. and it is not the way this country ought to think about itself as preserving this democracy that we have. the second thing is i think i'm disagreeing with you a little bit. i think we've made the system inaccessible, and we're at fault as lawyers and judges. and i think there are things that are not that hard that people should be able to resolve without the courts, and we ought to make that accessible to them

in ways where mediation and other forms of dispute resolution help people take the burden off the court because it's not that complex. and empower them to understand and learn about their problems and help solve them with the guidance of professionals as opposed to saying you've got to put your entire life in the hands of a professional. we're changing. we're an evolving society, and i think we've got to help and make sure citizens not only have access to justice, but maintain the independence of our judiciary and our profession, um, as critical elements to a system that holds others accountable. because once you lose that, it's toothpaste out the tube. it's not going back. and that's our job as guardians of the constitution and as true tees of the justice system -- trustees of the justice system. >> anyone else?

that's our panel time is over. i'd like to thank the panel for participating today, thank you for for coming. [applause] john, do you want rebuttal time? >> no. [laughter] i'm worn out. [laughter] >> want to thank the panel as well. it was a great discussion. i should recognize renee grisham earlier, thank you for being with us today. i want to thank the alabama law school staff, susan newman, brook, rebecca walden for this wonderful event. thank you for all being with us. we're now going to have a reception right outside the doors, so if you're exhausted, now's the time for a glass of wine. but we're adjourned. [applause] 'em p.m. ..