Top 10 Things Legally Blonde Gets Right & Wrong About Being a Lawyer

For a fashionista obsessed with what she wears, it seems pretty odd that Elle would miss the mark with her graduation outfit. But that’s precisely what she and her fellow graduating students do when they sport flat mortarboards instead of the doctoral gowns and tams that are traditional for graduate students. Maybe Elle didn’t like what the tam did to her hair, or maybe she objected to the relaxed fit of the traditional gown, but either way, for a school as steeped in tradition as Harvard, the mishap comes off as too glaring to let slide. Besides, mortarboards are so last season.

Although trends are changing, historically speaking, Harvard Law is a bastion of maleness - and that point is made quite clear by the way Elle is perceived when she starts law school. From the doubters like her professors and her semi-misinformed parents, to the way she sticks out like a sore thumb in her pink getups, it’s clear early on that Elle doesn’t blend in. Of course beneath the lip gloss and hairspray, Elle is as befitting of a law degree as any, but still, the movie makes a pretty good case for her being a fish-out-of-water when she first gets to Harvard. Professor Callahan’s inappropriate advances on her late in the film only highlight the male chauvinism.

A big plot point of the movie is Brooke’s unwillingness to state her alibi for fear of what it will do to her professional image. And we get it, admitting to undergoing liposuction as a fitness coach is kind of like taking steroids as a professional athlete. But here’s the thing: Brooke could have told her own lawyers her alibi without the news necessarily being made public in the courtroom. There is such a thing as confidentiality, and who knows, maybe that crucial piece of missing information could have helped her team fashion a better overall defense (no pun intended).

Part of the appeal of Harvard Law is its exclusivity. And the movie does a great job of showing not just how revered the institution is to students and faculty, but also how stuffy and elitist some of the club’s members can be. From Warner’s dumping Elle for not quite being Harvard material, to Vivian’s refusal to let Elle join the study group, it’s clear that there’s some pretty nasty snobbery that takes place within those time-honored walls. In fairness, there’s a good portion of the student body who aren’t stuck-up snobs, they just have smaller roles in the movie.

One of the most i stressful parts of being a first year law student are the gruelling first semester exams. But in “Legally Blonde” there isn’t a single test that takes place. Now, it’s pretty understandable that students sitting in a bland hall for six hours doesn’t make for the most visually compelling viewing material, but nevertheless, for such a notorious part of law school, it seems like an oversight to not even garner mention. After all, the students are routinely shown in study groups, but they seem like little more than an opportunity to show Elle’s ostracism from the rest of the class.

We can’t talk about this movie without mentioning the application video that ultimately gets Elle Woods accepted to Harvard. Now, we’re all for creative application vids, but showing you’re Ivy League material by appearing in a hot tub clad in a pink bikini just seems a little off. It’s true, Elle has a 4.0 GPA from UCLA, is president of her sorority, and had near perfect LSAT scores, but even still, this video just seems like it would be more of a hindrance than a help to her application. Then again, Harvard was looking for some diversity among its student body, and no doubt the video separated Elle from the pack?

Speaking of near perfect LSAT scores, the standard exam that all prospective law students take is generally assumed to correlate with a student’s aptitude. The best possible score you can get is 180 while the lowest is 120. The fact that Elle goes from a 143 practice exam up to a 179 final - one point off of perfection - is exceedingly rare and unrealistic. Still, we admire the film’s point that people can improve themselves and that the seemingly-impossible is achievable through hard work and a winning attitude. And hey, at least it justifies how she eventually got in!

One of the ways the film depicts Elle’s growth as a law student is when she gets the nod for Professor Callahan’s highly sought after internship. These internships really are an important facet of law school, and they can get pretty competitive, understandably. Now, it’s probably not the case that a first year law student would get an internship like this, as that’s likely saved for third year students, but Elle and the other students are justified in their excitement over being chosen. It’s too bad that Elle was forced to later question whether she was only picked because Callahan’s a perv.

This one goes for just about every movie depicting a courtroom scene, and it needs to be said: dramatic reveals just don’t happen that way in court! For one thing, lawyers are privy to all information before a case goes before the judge, so these last minute, bombshell reveals are practically impossible. We know it makes for great drama, and who doesn’t love the classic, “I object!” moment in movies, but let’s finally put this one to rest: things just don’t happen that way in the real world. Sigh.

A newbie intern would basically never get to question the witness on the stand. Let’s face it, a first year intern (which is already somewhat unrealistic) would be a glorified secretary, or maybe a junior case analyst, at best. And we get it, Elle needed her hero's moment, and what better way than to have her crack the case all on her own? Still, giving her the tall task of questioning a witness in a murder case would be like making the cadet lead detective on, well, a murder case. So while we appreciate the film depicting Elle’s transition from plucky student to bonafide lawyer, it’s unlikely to say the least!