This page is under review
in the Trope Repair Shop.
"[W]e should never lose sight of the fact that even a person accused of the most heinous crimes, and no matter the likelihood that he or she actually committed those crimes, is entitled to the full protection of the [law]. Short-cutting or short-circuiting those rights affects not only the accused, but also the entire reputation of the criminal justice system."
— Decision of the Canadian Supreme Court in R. v. Burlingham, [1995] 2 S.C.R. 206.
Watch the lawyers do their thing. Also commonly known as a Courtroom Drama, this is a work of dramatic fiction principally about litigation: be it civil or criminal cases, with the latter being more common because it often makes for better drama. note A military courtroom drama is one of the most common subgenres.
Most crime dramas focus on criminal investigations done by law enforcement officers (in the form of either a Cop Show or a Police Procedural) and does not often extend to anything happening in a courtroom. In such works where courtroom drama only lasts a single or a few episodes only, it's a Courtroom Episode.
If you're looking for works about people who make the law, see Government Procedural. For thrillers set in the legal world, with tension driven by action both inside and outside the courtroom, see Legal Thriller.
Courtroom Antics are to be expected. Also see The Courtroom Index for a list of common tropes.
Index of law procedural works:
open/close all folders
Advertising
Anime and Manga
Comic Books
- Daredevil: The titular protagonist is a lawyer, so scenes when he's not doing his superheroics have him do his day job.
Fan Works
- Chrysalis Visits The Hague is about Queen Chrysalis facing an ICC war crimes tribunal, and the legal and social implications thereof.
- Turnabout Storm, a major Ace Attorney/My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic Crossover.
- Elements of Justice is a Recursive Fanfiction sequel to Turnabout Storm.
- Vinyl and Octavia Duel Destiny is this, as it's mostly a homage to Ace Attorney.
- The Loud House fanfic No Happy Ending is about Rita and Lynn Sr. facing child neglect charges over the No Such Luck incident.
Films — Live-Action
(adaptations or original works)
- 12 Angry Men The jury deliberation is the only focus on the film/play.
- The Accused
- Anatomy of a Fall
- Anatomy of a Murder
- …and Justice for All
- Black and White (2002)
- Blind Faith
- Boomerang! (1947)
- A Civil Action
- Class Action
- The Caine Mutiny
- The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial
- Chicago, in part, as it covers Roxy Hart's trial for the murder of her lover in a crime of passion.
- The Client
- Compulsion 1959, a 1959 film with Orson Welles, based on the Leopold and Loeb murder trial.
- Coyote vs. ACME
- The Crime Is Mine
- Dark Waters (2019)
- Day of Defense
- Denial, A 2016 film about a libel suit between American Holocaust specialist Deborah Lipstadt (and her publisher) and British Holocaust denier David Irving.
- A Few Good Men
- Fracture (2007)
- Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem
- Ghosts of Mississippi
- Guilty
- The Hour of the Pig: A bizarre example, based on actual animal trials that occurred in Europe.
- i am sam
- Incident on a Dark Street
- Indictment: The McMartin Trial
- Indefensible: The Truth About Edward Brannigan
- Inherit the Wind
- In the Fade: Much of the film involves André and Edda Möller's trial for murdering Katja's family.
- In the Name of the Father
- JFK
- Joker: Folie à Deux
- The Judge
- Judgment In Berlin
- Judgment at Nuremberg
- Juror #2
- Just Mercy
- Kramer vs. Kramer
- Libel
- M, featuring not a legal courtroom but the criminal underworld equivalent.
- Marriage Story
- Marshall, a true story about Thurgood Marshall's time as a defense attorney, and specifically about a case where he defended a Black chauffeur accused of sexually assaulting his employer.
- Music Box
- My Cousin Vinny
- None Shall Escape
- Nuremberg (2025)
- Official Secrets
- The Paradine Case
- The Passion of Joan of Arc
- Paths of Glory
- The People vs. Larry Flynt
- Philadelphia
- Presumed Innocent
- The Rainmaker
- Red Dust (2004)
- Red Rooms
- Reversal of Fortune
- Runaway Jury
- The Seven Minutes
- Snow Falling on Cedars
- The Tattered Dress
- A Time to Kill
- To Kill a Mockingbird
- Town Without Pity
- The Trial a 1962 film by Orson Welles, based on the novel by Franz Kafka.
- The Trial of the Chicago 7
- True Believer
- The Truth (1960)
- The Verdict
- The Winslow Boy
- Witness for the Prosecution. Billy Wilder's adaptation of Agatha Christie.
- The Wrong Man
Literature
Indexed
- Babylon has Japanese public prosecutors as the main characters investigating a pharmaceutical company for rigging fake test results from a university.
- Christopher Paget and its spinoffs have a few
- The King of Torts is a legal thriller by John Grisham about a series of lawsuits against pharmaceutical companies.
- Miracle Creek
- Njal's Saga, a saga of a lawyer in medieval Iceland. Possibly the Ur-Example.
- QB VII
- Saving Max
- Snow Falling on Cedars is a legal thriller by David Guterson.
Unindexed
- Spisi i ljudi (Documents and people) by Serbian lawyer and academic Tibor Varadi is a somewhat fictionalized account of the legal cases from his family archive, spanning from 1893 until today.
- Storming the Court: How a Band of Yale Law Students Sued the President—And Won by Brandt Goldstein.
- Verbrechen (Crime) by German lawyer Friedrich von Schirach. Although he stated that the cases presented were fictionalized accounts of his actual cases, those were later debunked.
Live-Action TV
(adaptations or original works)
- All's Fair
- Ally McBeal
- All Rise
- American Crime Story
- Arrow (the first two seasons, plus a Genre Throwback in the fourth)
- Better Call Saul
- Billions
- Bluff City Law
- Boston Legal
- Bull
- Burden of Truth
- A Case for Two, half private detective show, half procedural
- Century City, court cases from the future
- Chicago Justice
- Conviction
- Conviction (2016)
- Crown Court
- Crownies
- Damages, though it has virtually no scenes in actual courtrooms
- Daredevil (2015)
- The Defenders (1961)
- The Defenders (2010)
- The Deep End
- The Devil Judge
- Doubt
- Equal Justice
- Extraordinary Attorney Woo
- Fairly Legal
- Family Law
- Family Law (2021)
- The Firm
- First Monday
- For the People
- Franklin & Bash
- Garrow's Law
- The Good Wife
- The Grinder
- Harry's Law
- How to Get Away with Murder
- Hyena
- JAG
- The Australian series Janus 1994.
- Judge John Deed
- Judging Amy
- Just Cause (2002)
- Justice
- Kingdom (2007)
- L.A. Law
- Law & Order
- The second half of Law & Order (See Police Procedural for the first half)
- Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (especially in seasons where there is an A.D.A. main character)
- Law & Order: Trial by Jury
- Conviction
- Law & Order: UK
- Law & Order: LA
- Law & Order: True Crime
- Legal High
- Legal V: Ex-lawyer, Shoko Takanashi
- The Lyon's Den
- Made in Jersey
- Matlock
- Matlock (2024)
- Murder One
- The Night Of covers Police Procedural as well as jail and law procedural.
- Nuremberg (2000)
- Outlaw (2010)
- Partners For Justice
- The People v. O. J. Simpson
- Perry Mason. 80 novels. Ur-example and Trope Codifier in Television.
- Petrocelli
- The Practice
- Presumed Innocent (2024)
- Rake
- The Rainmaker
- Raising the Bar
- Rumpole of the Bailey
- Sad Cypress. An Agatha Christie novel adapted for Radio and Television.
- Shark
- She-Hulk: Attorney at Law: Mixed with the superhero genre and a Sitcom.
- Shots Fired, some partial involvement of a prosecutor investing potential shooting motivated by race.
- Silk
- Street Legal
- Suits, which is fairly unique in that a) it's about corporate lawyers and civil suits and b) the characters have a stated desire to avoid the courtroom at all costs.
- Walker, Texas Ranger
- The Whole Truth
- The Wire Occasionally, with emphasis on the police-attorneys collaboration.
- This is Wonderland
Theatre
- The Andersonville Trial
- The Broken Jug (Der zerbrochne Krug) by Heinrich von Kleist. The central element is a trial in a rural court.
- Chicago, in part, as it covers Roxy Hart's trial for the murder of her lover in a crime of passion.
- A Man for All Seasons, and its film adaptation.
- Parade, a Broadway musical set around the murder trial of an innocent man.
Video Games / Visual Novels
Webcomics
- Supernatural Law, which combines this genre with Urban Fantasy.
Web Videos
Western Animation