Film and the Law: Just Mercy BLSA, March 9, 2021 - CLE up to 6.5 hours includes 2.5 elimination of bias-ethics

Description:

Attendees to this Professionalism at the Movies webinar will learn in the morning session:

-Racially discriminatory use of peremptory challenges

-Racial Diversity in the Legal Profession - A View from the Bench

-Cultural Competence as a Standard of Practice

-The afternoon session will then build on the concepts discussed during the morning session, with a viewing of Just Mercy (2019), followed by a lively interactive discussion on wrongful convictions and reforming the criminal justice system as portrayed in the movie.

Movie Synopsis:

Just Mercy (2019)

Starring: Michael B. Jordan, Jamie Foxx and Brie Larson

Based on the book by Bryan Stevenson

Director: Destin Daniel Cretton

Written by Destin Daniel Cretton and Andrew Lanham

A powerful and thought-provoking true story, Just Mercy stars Michael B. Jordan as newly-minted lawyer Bryan Stevenson and his history-making battle for justice on behalf of wrongfully convicted defendants. After graduating from Harvard, Stevenson has his pick of lucrative jobs. Instead, he moves to Alabama to defend those wrongly condemned or who were not afforded proper

representation, with the support of local advocate Eva Ansley. One of his first and most incendiary cases is that of Walter McMillian, who has been sentenced to die for the notorious murder of an 18-year-old girl, despite evidence proving his innocence and the fact that the only testimony against him came from a convicted criminal who later fully recanted his testimony.  In the years that follow, Stevenson becomes embroiled in a labyrinth of legal and political maneuverings and both overt racism and more subtle forms of racial bias as he fights for McMillan, and others like him, with the odds--and the system--stacked against them.