‘Rafferty's Rules’: Australian Legal Dramas and the Representation of Law

Abstract

This paper explores the problems involved in representing the Australian legal system on film and television, how these problems are addressed, and what commentary these texts are making about the practice of law in Australia. It is suggested that the formal and dress requirements of the Australian legal system make the trial process a ritual based around the reification of the lawyer and the stigmatisation of the accused — in short, a degradation ceremony — and that Australian legal dramas reflect this. But because of this lack of dynamism in the courtroom, Australian legal dramas must seek alternative sits of drama — often domestic, and invariably outside the courtroom. In this way, they present a more holistic view of the lawyer/judge's life, reinterpreting court proceedings (and the institution of law itself) as a repressed set-up by actively displacing dramatic tension outside the courtroom, thus denying the courtroom the centrality it occupies in American representations and, by extension, American culture.