Crime dramas featuring crusading lawyers, hardboiled detectives, and crooked cops comprise 20 percent of scripted shows on network TV—more than any other drama subgenre—according to the Hollywood Reporter.
 
And they make up the entirety of a popular course taught by Montgomery County District Court associate judge Zuberi Williams, WCL/JD ’03, Kogod/MBA ’05. One of the youngest judges in Maryland history when he was appointed to the bench in 2015 at age 36, Williams crafted the class to bridge two of his loves: law and pop culture.
 
Students, many of them aspiring attorneys, watch myriad arresting films and TV shows—such as Serpico, Hill Street Blues, Training Day, The Rookie, and the new Netflix series, The Lincoln Lawyer—to analyze on-screen depictions of police, lawyers, judges, and juries, including people of color and LGBTQ+ individuals. Through classroom discussion and written assignments, students also examine how law and order tropes conform or conflict with the public’s views of the justice system.
 
“The fundamental job of a lawyer is to persuade. If you can’t get people to see things your way, you’re not a very good lawyer,” Williams says. “I love challenging students and watching them think through how to make a more persuasive, well-researched argument. That gives me so much hope for the future.”
 
Williams, who’s taught as an adjunct in the School of Public Affairs for the last four years, is doing research of his own for the next iteration of the class. Currently in his queue: Jury Duty, Your Honor, and HBO’s Perry Mason reboot. 
 
“There’s a reason why there are so many [former] lawyers in writers’ rooms,” he says. “We know how to tell a good story.”