Penn Program on Documentaries and the Law

Documentary films increasingly impact what people know about the law. Consider "Capturing the Friedmans," "Super Size Me," and "The Corporation," all of which might be included in the genre of law-related nonfiction feature films. Lawyers need to be knowledgeable participants in the cultural and social debates such films provoke about the significance of our roles in the creation and maintenance of a just, democratic society. To fulfill this role, we need to have the critical tools to analyze what the makers of such documentaries are literally and figuratively telling their audiences about what it is that the law and lawyers do.

At the same time, the law impacts the stories professional filmmakers tell. No documentary filmmaker today can ignore the creative rights of others based on copyright law, the restrictions on content imposed by the torts of defamation and invasion of privacy, or the obligations to subjects that are grounded in the legal norms of fraud and informed consent. As a result, lawyers who understand both the law and the creative process are now an integral part of documentary film production.

In truth, more and more lawyers are assuming the role of filmmakers themselves. Like documentarians, lawyers tell other people's stories and they are increasingly doing it on film through such devices as video settlement brochures, multimedia closing arguments, and video-based petitions to administrative bodies. Some clients and rights-claimants, frequently with the assistance of lawyers, are taking up video cameras in order to tell their own stories directly to the public and key legislative and executive-branch decision makers. This is especially true in the area of international human rights. To keep pace with the proliferation of opportunities to mount legal arguments visually--opportunities that are generated by the development of relatively affordable, accessible, and reliable digital technology--law schools must begin to teach students the art of advocacy on film. Instruction in production techniques alone will not suffice; lawyers must be able to read and respond to films (their own and others). Thus, to be effective as visual advocates, legal professionals must have access to courses in the tools of law-genre nonfiction film theory and criticism as well.

The Documentaries & the Law Project has four goals:

1. To promote the critical use and analysis of law-genre documentaries in the legal academy.
2. To examine the role of lawyering in the creative process by which documentary films are made.
3. To probe the myriad uses of film as a tool of legal advocacy.
4. To create models for instructing law students, lawyers, and others in the fundamentals of nonfiction filmmaking and legal advocacy on film.

For more information on the Documentaries & the Law Project at Penn Law School, contact:

Regina Austin
William A. Schnader Professor of Law
University of Pennsylvania Law School
3400 Chestnut Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6204

Tel: 215.898.5185
Fax: 215.573.2025
Email: raustin@law.upenn.edu
Web: http://www.law.upenn.edu/faculty/raustin