John and Craig lawyer up with criminal defense attorney Ken White (aka Popehat) to look at legal scenes in movies and TV, and separate the tropes from the truth.

How do lawyers actually prepare a case? Will they meet a client in jail? Do they need to gather evidence themselves? And what happens when they go to trial? What are the rules for examining witnesses? How often do people represent themselves in court? And do judges really bang their gavel like that?

In our bonus segment for premium members, John and Craig invite Ken to imagine traveling somewhere worse than prison — the beach.

Links:

• Ken White on BlueSky, Facebook and Threads
• Serious Trouble podcast
• The Popehat Report by Ken White
• Hello, My Name Is Stephen Glass, and I’m Sorry by Hanna Rosin for The New Republic
• LibreOffice
• Sovereign Citizens Getting Owned
• The Rest is History podcast
• Get a Scriptnotes T-shirt!
• Check out the Inneresting Newsletter
• Gift a Scriptnotes Subscription or treat yourself to a premium subscription!
• Craig Mazin on Threads and Instagram
• John August on Threads, Instagram and Twitter
• John on Mastodon
• Outro by Lou Stone Borenstein (send us yours!)
• Scriptnotes is produced by Drew Marquardt and edited by Matthew Chilelli.

Email us at ask@johnaugust.com

You can download the episode here.