And that is news. It's news for two reasons. First, women lawyers in the movies invariably are pretty disgusting human beings or pretty lame lawyers. The most recent contender was Theresa, the American Gothic lawyer in Erin Brockovich who patronized the hard-working Erin and was so uptight that she couldn't talk to the clients and or bring herself to walk through cow dung to meet one of them. The list goes on and on, and the conclusion is clear.
Filmmakers consistently trash female lawyers.
Whether this is because women lawyers are hated and feared by audiences even more than male lawyers, or because filmmakers believe that law should be a man's profession, isn't clear, but the results are pretty obvious. You wouldn't want them as your friend or as your lawyer, or probably neither of the above. Television reflects this well, with plenty of good female lawyer role models on Law and Order , The Practice , JAG , Family Law , L. A. Law, and Judging Amy, But feature films have a long way to go, and that's why Laura in High Fidelity was both admirable and surprising. And now for the second reason that Laura's character was news. These assertions are based on a study of about 300 movie lawyer roles dating back to the 1930's.