- “Legally Blonde” portrays Elle Woods journey through law school, from the application process to her courtroom battles.
- There’s no way, however, that a first-year law student would be able to defend someone in court.
- According to law students, Elle Woods’ law school experience was in many ways, spot on but her court experience was not.
The 2001 hit comedy, “Legally Blonde,” has gained a large following for its portrayal of the struggle of law school through the eyes of the lovable Elle Woods. Once Woods decides to go to law school to prove her smarts to her ex-boyfriend’s traditional family, she has to work harder than she’s ever worked to prove herself to her ex and her professors, eventually culminating in a dramatic courtroom scene.
According to lead actress, Reese Witherspoon, young women have come up to her and told her that Elle Woods was the reason they went to law school. This film is popular amongst law students and was recently given an homage in Ariana Grande’s Thank U, Next video.
INSIDER interviewed law students on how “Legally Blonde” measures up against the law school process. They all had gripes but were generally in praise of Elle’s character and the movie’s depiction of the difficulty of law school.
Here’s everything wrong and right with “Legally Blonde.”
The professors really can be that tough.
In Elle's very first class, she is randomly called upon to answer a question, and subsequently kicked out in front of everyone for not doing the reading.
"Professors do call on you at random and you have to be always prepared for anything they may ask," said Emma Therrien, a student at Lewis & Clark Law School. "It can be really stressful and sometimes, like in the classroom on Elle's first day towards the beginning of the movie, the professors try to scare you a little."
"I had one professor who would chew you out in front of the whole class if you didn't know what it said in footnote 23," said Jameyanne Fuller, a student at Harvard Law School. "I spent that semester terrified of being called on."
Law school is really hard for everyone, not just Elle Woods.
"I do think the movie did a good job capturing how out-of-place and stupid you can feel when you're first starting law school," said Jameyanne Fuller. "Yes, the differences between Elle and the other students may be more than the differences between classmates in your average Harvard Law School class, but I definitely felt like I didn't belong for a while and I'm sure I'm not the only one. Law school is so different and hard, and in the first year you really are learning to think in a totally new way."
Laptops are the norm, but since 2001, you may see more fluffy pink pens.
On Elle's first day of law school, she's the only student in her class without a laptop and pulls a fluffy pink pen and heart-shaped notebook out of her purse.
"Pretty much everyone uses a laptop in classes, though some people do handwrite notes; God bless them, the professors talk too fast for my pen to keep up. And I'm pretty sure everyone in the room has been distracted by the internet at some point or another, so maybe Elle had the right idea with those cute pens," said Therrien.
Samantha French Blackwell, a student at The University of Law in the U.K. has taken Elle's approach to heart. "I pretty much exclusively use fluffy pink pens and pink stationery for my law school-related writing in homage to Elle Woods. She's my reminder that I can do this."
The competitive nature of the internship process is super accurate.
"Quite often, you are applying for internship opportunities in the fall that won't take place until the following summer and you'll be interviewing for tons of internships competing against students from your law school as well as many other law schools. I could easily relate to the feeling Elle had when she saw her name on the list of students who had been selected for Callahan's internship," recounts Sabrina Blefgen, a student at The Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University.
There's no way Elle would be able to question a witness on the stand.
"A first-year law student would never be able to question witnesses in a criminal court. The most she would be doing as a 1L would be research and drafting memos or motions, maybe," said Therrien.
The movie uses Massachusetts' Supreme Judicial Court Rule 3.03 to justify Emmett signing off on Elle as the acting lawyer, but in reality, Therrien points out that the ruling only applies to third-year law students.
If Elle Woods was a third-year student, not a first-year, the internship duties are spot-on.
"The student practice order allows law students to represent clients under the supervision of an attorney," said Blefgen. "Just like Elle, I was able to represent clients while working in a walk-in clinic."
However, no matter how overloaded Professor Callahan was and promising Elle was, she probably wouldn't have even gotten an internship in her first year. Blefgen elaborates, "Many law schools have a restriction on the amount of hours that first-year students can work. As a result, not many first-year students will have an externship or internship."
Big dramatic reveals never really happen in court.
"My complaint about the courtroom scene is the complaint any lawyer would give you about trials in movies; lawyers learn all of this during discovery," said Fuller. "There are no dramatic reveals in the middle of a trial."
Elle wins the case for her unique knowledge of perm maintenance techniques, allowing her to destroy the murderer's alibi in front of the court.
"But it is a movie, and it's a great scene, so I forgive it for being dramatic."
Not everyone comes from a law background.
Medical school tends to have a strict "pre-med" track for entry, but not all undergrad programs have a "pre-law" track, so people of all different backgrounds are attending law school. You will find people who have degrees in fashion merchandising like Elle, or biochemistry, Russian literature, or women's studies, like her peers.
"I don't come from a legal academic background; I previously went to drama school and only decided to go down the legal track last year," said Blackwell.
Harvard Law School's admission FAQ states that they consider applications from all undergraduate majors, but do favor "a broad college education" as opposed to a specialized skill.
Elle Woods was a woman in a male-dominated field.
Elle Woods doubts that she was chosen for her professor's exclusive internship for her academic rigor when he hits on her. She drops out of her internship until another professor encourages not to let "one prick ruin her life." Though her male professor hitting on her may be dramatized for film, many women in law school do admit to having doubts about their status.
"In the limited experience I've had with legal internships so far... it is difficult to be taken seriously as a woman ... I have still been left to do menial tasks like take trial notes, make tea, pick up sandwiches for lunch, etc. I don't know whether male pupils have had the same experience, but it's hard to shake the feeling that you're not being taken entirely seriously," admitted Blackwell.
Aside from dealing with self-doubt, Elle Woods, as a woman, is outnumbered by male lawyers and male law school students in "Legally Blonde."
The prevalence of male lawyers over female lawyers is real off-screen as well. According to the United States Census Bureau, women make up only 38% of lawyers.
Elle's awkward nerves are real.
"I love how nervous Elle is at first in the courtroom scene. It feels so realistic," said Fuller.
In some schools, people do carry their dogs everywhere.
While it seems that most people wouldn't be able to bring their Chihuahuas to class, unless Elle has a service dog, some schools do allow it.
"At least at my school in Oregon, Elle bringing Bruiser everywhere is very realistic. People sure love their dogs out here in Portland and bring them to school pretty often," said Therrien. "Someone brought two ferrets once, so seeing a dressed-up chihuahua on campus is a very real possibility."
It's a lot more collaborative than competitive.
"Harvard Law School culture is a lot more collaborative than the movie depicts. Really, everybody wants everybody else to do well. Your classmates now are your future colleagues, after all, and honestly law school is hard enough without competing with each other," said Fuller.
Emma Therrien posits that Elle's new friendships with her peers, despite their diverse backgrounds, are very possible. "Camaraderie-making friends in law school, is tough, but the aspect of the story where Elle maintains friendships with her college friends and forges friendships with people she didn't expect (I'm looking at you, Vivienne Kensington) is definitely possible."
There's a big plot point left out in Elle's journey.
"The movie totally skipped first semester exams which is like the most stressful time in law school ever," said Fuller. "Elle is not seen taking tests throughout the movie because in law school, they're often only given at the end of the semester, where you're expected to regurgitate and analyze the entire semester's work."
The application process for Harvard University wasn't entirely accurate.
"During orientation, Harvard Law School actually played the clip of Elle's admissions video with the admissions committee deciding to let her in, and then they swore that's not how they made decisions," said Fuller.
Harvard requires a personal statement of two pages, but also allows for an optional statement "to elaborate on how you could contribute to the diversity of the Harvard Law School community."
Despite its bending of the truth, "Legally Blonde" gets a lot of law school culture right, and is a must-watch for all female law students.
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