In the 1957 film “12 Angry Men,” almost all of the action takes place in a sparsely furnished room with a simple wooden conference table in the center, a dozen chairs, some windows, lights and a fan. An all-male, all-White jury enters to begin deliberations in a case in which the defendant’s guilt seems to be a foregone conclusion.
When the others rush to vote for conviction of a young Hispanic-American man for his father’s murder with scant consideration of the facts, one man holds out, insisting on a discussion of the case. A guilty verdict would automatically carry a death sentence, and a young life is at stake. The judge had admonished them that they must convict “beyond a reasonable doubt.”
The movie, based on a teleplay by Reginald Rose, is done in black and white with a stellar cast: Henry Fonda, E.G. Marshall, Jack Klugman, Lee J. Cobb, Martin Balsam, John Fiedler, among others. As the plot progresses, the biases, experiences and character of each juror comes into view, and the arguments reach a fever pitch to match the stifling heat of the cramped, un-air-conditioned room in mid-summer. Gradually sifting through the facts, flaws and fallacies in the case, the jurors shed demons, reach consensus and come down on the side of justice.
To Kelly Lynn Anders, director of communications and diversity at Creighton University School of Law in Omaha, Neb., this is not just an example of a good classic movie — though it is that. The feature film debut of director Sidney Lumet, it was so well-regarded that it won 13 movie-industry awards and nominations for three Oscars and for six other prizes. The enduring story was remade for television in 1997, cast with Courtney B. Vance, Ossie Davis, George C. Scott, James Gandolfini, Tony Danza and Jack Lemmon, among others, on the jury.
Anders sees the original film as an excellent teaching aid and uses it as a prime example of the art of negotiation in her book Advocacy to Zealousness: Learning Lawyering Skills from Classic Films ($28, Carolina Academic Press, Jan. 9, 2012, ISBN-10: 1594607982, ISBN-13:978-1594607981, pp. 236).
The book presents 26 lessons, each based on a classic film, focusing on specific skills, in alphabetical order, including advocacy (“Anatomy of a Murder”), balance (“The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit”), compassion (“To Kill a Mockingbird”), dependability (“Pinky”), empathy (“Gentlemen’s Agreement”) and so forth. Each chapter begins with a discussion of a skill as it applies to lawyers, followed by an explanation of how the movie illustrates it. Discussion questions and exercises for improvement complete the chapters. Anders said the book has received “quite a bit of positive interest.”
“People are curious and interested in the topics and interested in seeing the films,” she said. “Already some professors around the country are considering the book for use in their classes, and it’s in law libraries around the country and one in Germany.”
