The Extreme Makeover Effect of Law School: Students Being Transformed by Stories

The relationship between law and popular culture has caused great interest among scholars over the years. It is a field that invites the merging of disciplinary boundaries and allows for plurality in the ways that law can be viewed. This paper seeks to view this relationship from the vantage point of the first year law student and to explore the representation and transformation of meaning about law and lawyering within the social and academic context of law school. Situated within the expanding scholarship on law and popular culture, this paper examines how the image of the lawyer is constructed and interpreted by law students. Of particular concern are the stories that are interpreted and produced through the medium of television and within the context of law school.