As a law student, you know all about the Magna Carta, can recite the elements for murder, and have even mastered section 109 inconsistency in Constitutional Law. But here are some law facts you probably didn’t know…
Research has found that people whose names begin with ‘la’ sounds like Laura and Lawrence are more likely to become lawyers.
Remember the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes? Calvin’s long-suffering dad is a patent lawyer. While we’re on the topic of comics, Wonder Woman’s co-creators Elizabeth Holloway and William Marston were both law grads.
Frank Neuhauser, the winner of America’s first national spelling bee grew up to be a patent lawyer.
In 2006 UK chef Domenico Crolla created the Pizza Royale 007 – the world’s most expensive pizza. The dish featured venison, edible flakes of 24-carat gold, cognac-marinated lobster, smoked salmon and champagne-soaked caviar. Lawyer Maurizio Morelli coughed up the dough (sorry) and bought the pizza for $4,200 on eBay.
Courtroom dramas are often to blame for inaccurate public perceptions of the law. In the United States, TV show Perry Mason has spawned its own syndrome. The program, which aired in the 1950s and 60s, typically saw the LA criminal lawyer clearing his client’s name by causing a witness to break down and confess at the trial. Perry Mason syndrome has been blamed for overly reinforcing the presumption of innocence, and creating the expectation among jurors that a dramatic witness confession will happen in real life cases.
Similarly, the CSI Effect (sometimes called the CSI Syndrome) has been suggested as the cause of jurors placing less value on circumstantial evidence and expecting more forensic evidence in criminal trials.
New York Times crossword editor Will Shortz is a law graduate. He finished his Juris Doctor at the University of Virginia in 1977, and skipped the bar exam in favour of puzzles.
Scottish actor Gerard Butler gained a law degree from Glasgow University and worked as a trainee lawyer but was fired by his firm the week before he was admitted! Fun fact: Butler was born in Paisley, the town where May Donoghue once made that fateful ginger beer order.
Some people believe that carrying nuts in your pocket will bring luck in litigation.
Lawyer Chester Carlson invented the modern process of photocopying. Paralegals around the world have been cursing his name ever since.
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