From Deseret News archives:
Law club honoring 'Seinfeld' shyster
"It's delicious! Scrumptious! Outstanding!" the moustached attorney would say.
The fast-talking lawyer on the popular TV show "Seinfeld" has become the inspiration for a new club at the University of Utah's S.J. Quinney College of Law. Phil Morris, the actor who made Chiles a popular character, will be honored tonight at the society's year-end banquet.
"He embodies a lot of the negative stereotypes of attorneys," Tyler Buswell, the president of the Jackie Chiles Law Society at the U., said of the "Seinfeld" character.
The society is a club at the law school that takes a look at the law through pop culture's eyes. It has put "The Simpsons" character Krusty the Clown on trial, analyzed jury selection as a result of watching "CSI," and even used "Seinfeld" as the basis for a discussion on intellectual property law.
"People love to come to it because it's a good time," Buswell said. "We do talk about real legal issues."
For example, the club watched a "Simpsons" episode where Krusty was put on trial for armed robbery. The club brought in a prosecutor and defense attorney to discuss the real criminal merits of the case. The popular TV show "CSI" has also been debated for what it does to jury selection now.
Movies like "Intolerable Cruelty" and "Liar, Liar" have also provided a good jumping point to discuss ethics and lawyers — and mass media portrayals of lawyers as slimy ambulance chasers.
"Part of the society is to figure out why popular culture views attorneys in this way," Buswell said, adding that movies 50 years ago showed attorneys as defenders of justice.
"Yet today, that has totally changed," he said.
The Jackie Chiles Law Society is named after the ultimate stereotype of ambulance chasers. Jackie Chiles was Kramer's lawyer in a number of episodes, including several product liability suits. When Kramer aged prematurely because he turned his apartment into a smoking lounge, Chiles saw a big, fat tobacco settlement.
"Jackie's cashing in on your wretched disfigurement," the lawyer said to Kramer in an episode recap published on Wikipedia.org.
Each episode typically ended with Chiles being foiled by Kramer accepting a foolish settlement offer instead of going for money.
For the society's banquet, Buswell decided to ask actor Phil Morris, who made the Chiles character famous, to come to Salt Lake City to speak.
"He loved the idea," Buswell said.
The banquet takes place tonight at the Little America Hotel. The master of ceremonies will be U.S. District Judge Dee Benson.
E-mail: bwinslow@desnews.com
