The legal profession is one that is incredibly dependent on how it is viewed by the general public. The
majority of the general public derives their opinion of the legal system and career, not through personal
experience, but rather through the popular media that they view. My research seeks to answer the
question, “To what extent does there exist a bias against either side of counsel within American trial film
from the 21st century?” To answer this question, I will conduct a qualitative content analysis of the
dialogue of significant trial films made in the 21st century, using open coding to distinguish prevalent
themes across movies. First, I will categorize the dialogue to be anti-prosecution or anti-defense. Then, I

will code the dialogue to a theme, like “greed,” “pride,” or “inefficiency.” Because past literature has
suggested a difference in content of films based on a true story and films based entirely on fiction, I will
be conducting separate analyses for each category. I hypothesize that films based entirely on fiction will
present with a negative bias towards defense counsel, and films based on true stories will present with a
negative bias towards prosecution counsel.