Lawyers, Guns and Money: An occasional series on movies, TV and other stories about lawyers and the law —The Verdict (1982, Dir. Sidney Lumet)

Frank Galvin is a mess. A drunken has-been of a lawyer, disillusioned by past failures and the corruption that plagues the justice system, he whiles away his time drinking whiskey and playing pinball at his favorite Boston bar. When Frank takes a case all but guaranteed to yield a fat settlement — a Catholic hospital gave a pregnant woman the wrong anesthetic, rendering her a vegetative state, and the diocese wants the whole thing to go away — he sees dollar signs spinning before his eyes. But then something happens. Frank comes down with a case of conscientiousness. He decides he can win this case, stick it to the fat cat defense attorney and establishment judge, and take a chance on doing the right thing for the first time since he can remember. He bends some rules along the way. But in The Verdict, Sidney Lumet’s blunt, masterful 1982 legal drama, rules are made to be bent. This is a brutal, bare-knuckle world that hides behind a veneer of law and civility, where moral compromise and outright cheating carry the winners over the finish line. Frank, played by Paul Newman in one of his most fragile, resonant performances, hasn’t crossed that line…