00;00;01;18 - 00;00;34;27

Jonathan Hafetz

Hi, I'm Jonathan Hafetz and welcome to Law and Film, a podcast that explores the rich connections between law and film. Law is critical to many films. Films, in turn, tell us a lot about the law. In each episode, we'll examine a film that's noteworthy from a legal perspective. What legal issues does the film explore? What does it get right about the law and what does it get wrong?

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Jonathan Hafetz

And what does the film teach us about the law and the larger social and cultural context in which it operates? Our film today is Michael Clayton, a 2007 film written and directed by Tony Gilroy. The film tells the story of a fixer, Michael Clayton, played by George Clooney, who troubleshooter for a major U.S. law firm and their clients, who he helps out of various jams.

00;00;58;22 - 00;01;32;07

Jonathan Hafetz

In the film, one of the firm's top lawyers, Arthur Edens, played by Tom Wilkinson, learns that, you know, the major corporate client he's been representing in a class action lawsuit for the last decade and defending had, in fact, known that the weed killer it used was carcinogenic and was trying to cover it up. The corporation grows increasingly concerned about Arthur's erratic behavior, eventually prompting its general counsel, played by Tilda Swinton, with a push from her CEO to arrange for the lawyer to be killed by two hitmen before he can expose the company secret.

00;01;32;10 - 00;01;52;12

Jonathan Hafetz

And when Michael Clayton grows suspicious about Arthur's death and the company's conduct, the general counsel tries to have him killed too. Michael Clayton escapes the attempted hit and is able to expose the corporation by tricking the General Counsel into believing that he will fix her problem too, causing her to attempt to bribe him. While secretly recording the conversation for the police.

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Jonathan Hafetz

The film is not only a captivating and expertly crafted legal thriller, it also explores some of the darker trends within the larger U.S. legal culture. And while practice, our guest today to discuss the film is Peggy McGinnis. Peggy is a professor of law at Saint John's University School of Law. She's the co-director of the Saint John Center for International and Comparative Law.

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Jonathan Hafetz

Professor McGinnis researches and teaches in the areas of international law and international human rights law. And she's published widely on the subjects of international human rights law, international security, and the role and influence of international law in the United States. She's published widely in these areas and numerous scholarly journals. Peggy's most recent book is a research Handbook, Online Diplomacy, which she co-edited with David Stewart.

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Jonathan Hafetz

Professor McGinnis serves on the Council of International Affairs of the New York City Bar Association, and the Executive Committee of the International Section of the New York State Bar, where she's the co-chair of the Public International Law Committee. She's an active member of the American Society of International Law, where she served on the Executive Council and the International Law Association and American Branch.

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Jonathan Hafetz

She also co-founded opinion US, a leading international law blog. Professor McGinnis graduated with distinction from Stanford Law School, where she was an articles editor for the Stanford Law Review and a graduate fellow at the Stanford Center on Conflict and Negotiation. After law school, she clerked for Judge Colleen McMahon in the Southern District of New York. She also served early in her career as a Foreign Service officer with the State Department, which included service in Germany, Pakistan, and Canada, and as a special assistant to Secretary of State Warren Christopher.

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Jonathan Hafetz

And perhaps most relevant for our discussion today. Peggy worked as a litigator for Paul Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton and Garrison, a major US law firm. Peggy, welcome.

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Peggy McGuinness

Thank you Jonathan. I'm excited to be here.

00;03;43;25 - 00;04;02;25

Jonathan Hafetz

Great. Well, this movie is about a fixer, Michael Clayton, who works at a large, very prestigious law firm in New York. And putting aside the particular facts about the film is the notion of a fixer a real thing, and how does it relate to big law practice? From your experience there and what you know about it?

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Peggy McGuinness

Yeah. So as you mentioned, you know, before I joined immediately before joining the legal academy, I worked for over three years as a litigator at Paul Weiss, well-regarded and considered to be one of the top litigation shops, if not in New York. You know, in the country. And, you know, outside of New York, folks refer to these as the so-called Wall Street law firms.

00;04;23;25 - 00;04;45;21

Peggy McGuinness

And to me, what really resonated with Michael Clayton when I saw it for the first time is that this film really captured the vibe, the feeling of being a litigator at one of those big firms, you know? And I'll say, I'll say one thing before getting into your question about a fixer. The film was filmed on location and it was filmed in Midtown, and I think it gets so many of the details.

00;04;45;23 - 00;05;05;29

Peggy McGuinness

And of course, I was litigating in the early aughts in this film, as you mentioned, was released in 2007. So it really gets a lot of the details that at least reflected what my kind of daily routine was like and what life was like. Right down to the the Midtown office building, I think it was filmed one block away from the office building that I worked in, just the way it was laid out.

00;05;05;29 - 00;05;31;07

Peggy McGuinness

Those those camera, the camera moving through the corridors of the big firm with the conference rooms, in the middle, and the way that the mail cart moved through the firm, all of that, very much visually, I thought, captured a mood that felt very spot on and very accurate. The other thing about the film, it really captures the vibe of big firm litigation when it is high stakes.

00;05;31;09 - 00;05;59;13

Peggy McGuinness

And I have to say, you know, I worked on two big cases in my relatively short tenure, but it felt much longer, of course, that the hours you put in the first case I worked on settled for $600 million. We actually represented the client that was the plaintiff in that one. And the second case I worked on resulted in multiple settlements with both private counterparties and with government entities that eventually ended up in billions of dollars of liability for the client we represented.

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Peggy McGuinness

So I'm familiar with these big cases, with the big amounts of money and the pressure and stress that's on the partners of the law firm in their relationship with in-house counsel. In those cases, that relationship felt very accurate to me. Now, one thing you learn on, you learn early on in big Law is that almost no big corporate litigations go to trial, right?

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Peggy McGuinness

They all settle. Most of them do. And you have scores of junior attorneys and paralegals and staff attorneys toiling for, months, if not years on discovery, millions of pages of papers and so on. The film condenses this timeline in the sort of fictionalized case here, you know, which to me feels like a sort of stand in for a company like Monsanto.

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Peggy McGuinness

We can kind of see some parallels between maybe the, the roundup litigation that's still ongoing against Monsanto in the kind of environmental case that this might be. And you know, that the client is headquartered in Omaha. In the film, you know, and it shifts from the sort of mid-year, fourth and fifth year associate to doing the depositions within sort of a not so great hotel.

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Peggy McGuinness

The outskirts of Milwaukee, back to the big law firm, where there's frantic settlement negotiations going on in the conference room. So I gets all that right. That all felt very true to my experience in big law. Now, as to fixers, I don't know if there are such things as a fixer at some of these big firms. But if we play that opening scene with the high net worth client, I just think it's a brilliant depiction visually and sort of in terms of the language, in this exchange of what a fixer does for the firm.

00;07;33;28 - 00;07;56;19

Jonathan Hafetz

Let's play that clip now. This is the opening scene of the film, where Michael Clayton is called upon by one of the law firm partners to assist one of the firm's important clients with, a matter, we might say, a car accident, a hit and run accident that the client was in in Westchester late at night. So here's the clip from Michael Clayton.

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Jonathan Hafetz

Hello.

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Film Dialogue

Michael. Walter. Michael. Thank God. There you are. Look, I, I got a situation, a big problem with my client of mine. Just called. He hit a guy with his car. He thinks he did. He thinks he hit him just now. Yeah. Just now, ten, 15 minutes ago. He's driving home. His home now. They're waiting. We're at Westchester.

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Film Dialogue

I'm down here in Bermuda. Just coming up on half asleep here. Is he drunk? No, no. First thing I ask him. No. He's good sober. It's on the phone. Right? You're on him, right? And you get up there because this guy, like he's a huge client. Michael, this is half my book. This guy. Okay. I'm walking to the car right now.

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Film Dialogue

Okay, look, look, let me call him right back. I'll get the address. Just let me know you're on the way, and then I'll get right back to you with the details. Okay? I'll be in the car. But they did. You see? They change the grade there. The why in the street? I'm sure somebody told them that that was an improvement.

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Film Dialogue

But now, you see, when it rains and when there is fog. And with this new angle. And they've got these new these, these, these sodium lamps, it's blinding that corner right there. It is just blinding.

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Film Dialogue

Now they're going to have to work that out.

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Film Dialogue

Yeah. And it's not just tonight. I mean, I've been saying this for years. I mean, how many times have we talked about that corner? Del.

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Film Dialogue

Mr. grill, we don't have a lot of time here. Oh, so.

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Film Dialogue

The circumstances, the the road conditions, none of this holds any interest for you.

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Film Dialogue

What interests me is finding the strongest possible criminal attorney that can be here in the next 15 minutes. Well, that sounds ominous. We have some good relationships up here. Westchester.

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Film Dialogue

So, what are you. What are you. You're not alone.

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Film Dialogue

Not the kind you need. What kind? Is there a trial lawyer, somebody? You see this all the way through? That's not what I do.

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Film Dialogue

Okay? I think we're going to have to pull Walter back in on this. I want to get Walter back on the phone. I want to get him back into the mix, because, I'll be frank with you. I don't like the.

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Film Dialogue

Way this is going. So we don't have time for Walter. Your options here are going to get smaller very quickly.

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Film Dialogue

What options? I'm not hearing any options.

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Film Dialogue

I'm suggesting that you go local, and I'm telling you that there are some people up here that I like for this.

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Film Dialogue

Okay, great. That's it. That's what you got for me. Hey, you believe this? I've got a client, a cater back for 12 years. Do you think that I pay the retainer every month so I can have a place at the back of the line?

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Film Dialogue

Mr. Greer, you left the scene of an accident on a slow weeknight six miles from the state police barracks. Believe me, if there's a line, you're right up front.

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Film Dialogue

I can get a lawyer any time I want you. I don't need you for that. We're not sitting here for 45 minutes waiting for a goddamn referral.

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Film Dialogue

I don't know what Walter promised you, but I could use miracle worker.

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Film Dialogue

That's Walter on the phone 20 minutes ago. Direct quote. Okay. Hang tight. I'm sending you a miracle worker. He misspoke. About what? About the fact that you're the firmest fixer. That you're any good at it. Elliot, the guy was running in the street. You take that? Yeah. The fog? Yeah. The lamps? Yeah. The angle. What the fuck is he doing running in the middle of the street at midnight?

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Film Dialogue

No, you answer me that. What if someone is.

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Film Dialogue

Still in the car, Happens all the time. Cops like in runs. They work them out at the clearing fast. Right now, there's a BCI unit pulling patients off a guardrail. Tomorrow, they're going to be looking for the owner of a custom painted hand rug. Jaguar xG 12. The guy you hit, you got. Look at the plates. Don't you?

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Film Dialogue

Take that one.

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Film Dialogue

No play here. You know angle. There's a miracle worker. I'm a janitor. The math on this is simple. The smaller the best, the easier it is for me to clean up. That's the police, isn't it? No, they don't call.

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Jonathan Hafetz

So, Peggy, tell us how this relates to what you were saying.

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Peggy McGuinness

Yeah. So he's probably, you know, we don't know who he is, but we know from Walter that he is, quote unquote, half my book, which means he's 50% of the other partners. The firm partners revenue for the year. Right. And it's an individual. So we don't know for sure. But you can guess that he's probably manages a private equity fund or a hedge fund.

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Peggy McGuinness

He's high net worth. He might be a client of the private equity group. And the tax group and maybe the Trusts and Estates group. And when he gets litigation, the litigation group. Right. So this kind of a client is very familiar to me from my practice. As a litigator, Paul Weiss, you know, the names of the big corporations.

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Peggy McGuinness

But a lot of these high net worth folks in finance who also have representation at these big firms, we don't know their names, right. But they have very high expectations of service. And so this is not someone who is expecting any kind of friction in his life. And this seems like actually a rather tragic circumstance on its face.

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Peggy McGuinness

It's late at night. We don't know whether he was impaired or not. He hit someone while driving his car and he doesn't want this to interfere with his life at all. And he calls the partner who's his relationship partner at the firm, who is himself down in Bermuda and probably on some other offshore business. Right, saying like, hey, you know, it's two in the morning in Westchester, get me out of this.

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Peggy McGuinness

So I think that that's something that's familiar in terms of expecting you have a big firm representing you. You expect through the breadth and depth of their expertise that they can find a way out of tight squeezes. I mean, it was very common when I was at Paul Weiss, for example, almost every day, you know, emails, people requesting, you know, a lead on local council in some smaller jurisdiction or a foreign jurisdiction, or do you know someone who can represent, you know, a smaller client who can't afford, you know, in a particular matter can't afford or, hourly.

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Peggy McGuinness

So that's, one of the values to, high net worth clients that big firms bring in. They expect that kind of help. So in that sense, I think having, sort of, you know, as I say, 365 representation, right? You're going to help me solve my problems. And in this way, Michael Clayton embodies that kind of full service fixer.

00;14;01;19 - 00;14;17;15

Jonathan Hafetz

Yeah, it's interesting because Michael Clayton, as he tells the client who's in the jam that, look, I there's only so much I can do here. Right? There is no real fix for this. This is just damage control, right? You left the scene of an accident, you're going to be on the hook. And, you know, basically, you need a criminal defense lawyer.

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Jonathan Hafetz

And I'm just going to try to manage it and keep it small. I mean, the guy is expecting some kind of miracle that he's going to escape from this. So I think in that sense is realistic that there's only so much that anyone could do in these circumstances.

00;14;28;24 - 00;14;52;20

Peggy McGuinness

That's right. And I think one thing that it's hard to convey to law students is that that's often the case with lawyers, right? The client calls with the problem that there's a particular outcome, there's a particular bureaucratic procedure, there's a there's a way that things are going to have happen. But if they've got a reputation, the lawyer who's experienced and knows a lot of people can help keep things out of the newspaper, can keep things quiet, can manage expectations in a way and make decisions.

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Peggy McGuinness

I mean, it is incredibly common. And I know this from practice to work with PR firms. Right. So lawyers, often work with PR firms to manage. We call that sort of, you know, when you've got damage control at that term that you used. Right. That's a very common kind of problem that all sorts of lawyers with, you know, high net worth clients, clients in the public eye, any kind of, you know, public corporations.

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Peggy McGuinness

And so to have to deal with those questions which may not have legal answers but have PR answers.

00;15;19;24 - 00;15;40;17

Jonathan Hafetz

And Michael Clayton's background is different from the other lawyers in the firm. He worked for a period of time for the district attorney's office, but never really practiced, and the firm snapped him up for his talents as a fixer. Right. A person who can provide this 365 representation. Does a film capture the gradations of class and culture around a large law firm?

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Jonathan Hafetz

And what does that to say about those dynamics?

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Peggy McGuinness

One of the things I really like about this movie is that I think Tony Gilroy really captures the power dynamic inside New York, at least in legal circles. Maybe the law meets law enforcement a little bit, which I'm not as familiar with the law enforcement side of things, but he's a great year for the language and syntax of New York power and of the class and geographic distinctions, and which are also, you know, depicted visually.

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Peggy McGuinness

I think, throughout the film. He makes a point of having one of the characters. I think it's one of the assistance to the general counsel that, you know, read out the background check that they perform on Michael Clayton. Right, because he shows up at this deposition gone wrong in Milwaukee, and they sort of say to themselves, who is this guy?

00;16;24;13 - 00;16;42;29

Peggy McGuinness

Right. As they read his background, Saint John's undergrad, Fordham Law. So anyone in New York knows that's out of borrow out of borough. Fordham was in Manhattan. But it's the two Catholic universities of New York which have a history of being sort of second tier to Columbia or NYU as universities in this town. His dad was a cop.

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Peggy McGuinness

All right. So that speaks volumes. Saint John's Fordham dad was a cop. It also reads to me in my background, Irish Catholic, right. The name Saint John's Fordham dad was a cop, right. So you get a lot of information just in that one sentence. It's read about Michael Clayton's background. I happen to teach at Saint John's. Right. So for me, that really kind of resonates.

00;17;03;13 - 00;17;24;29

Peggy McGuinness

I, I also am a graduate of elite law school, and I know the distinction between perceptions of graduates of places like Saint John's and those who are graduates of, you know, Yale, Harvard or where I went, which is Stanford. Saint John's happens to also have a very long history of connections to the NYPD. So that's just historically both at the undergraduate level but also the law school.

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Peggy McGuinness

I think I'm not 100% certain, but I think Ray Kelly was the was the commissioner of police at the time the movie was made. In any event, he was commissioner at least a couple years after that. And he's a Saint John's Law grad. The NYPD used to have a program for, you know, well, promoted cops who wanted to get a law degree to take the night program at Saint John's many years ago.

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Peggy McGuinness

So it's long connections to the to the police and to the DA's offices in Queens and Brooklyn, for that matter. So thinking about those as the local, you know, the hyper local power structures, Queens DA's office, a Brooklyn DA's office, politically, you know, a place like Saint John's, we produced, Saint John's Law produced Hugh Carey and Mario Cuomo, two former governors.

00;18;05;17 - 00;18;35;27

Peggy McGuinness

So sort of part of that sort of local political machine. So there's no question in the film that you see this, you know, Chris Case and Arthur Edens probably it's definitely in federal court, federal class action, maybe Multidistrict litigation complex, high stakes, $3 billion case. And then there's sort of the gritty, grimy, dirty work that's being done. You know, Michael in his old job in the Queens DA's office and the cops and so on, the work of prosecution and policing is framed maybe as a little bit dirty, right.

00;18;35;27 - 00;18;55;29

Peggy McGuinness

And in this film, sort of visually and so on. But I think the film does an excellent job of vindicating and sort of juxtaposing maybe the local cops and DA's and their gritty work against the clinical killing. Right. Both through the pesticide itself and then later, of course, through the actual killing of Arthur Edens of the You North corporation.

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Peggy McGuinness

You know, you see that these elite circles, this pristine and clinically clean conference rooms that you north and they're beautifully produced corporate films underneath that is a pretty seedy side. You know, the film finds Michael, you know, in his background, valuable because he knows a lot of cops. Right. His dad's a retired cop. He's got a brother who's a cop.

00;19;16;27 - 00;19;39;24

Peggy McGuinness

He knows the ins and outs of the DA's offices. I mean, he's the kind of guy at the firm who can handle, like, the teenage child of a partner who gets a DUI in the Hamptons on the weekend. He's going to know someone in Suffolk County he can call. Right? The film shows him in a very short clip, understanding the bureaucracy of the federal immigration Service, giving advice to someone who's client been nominated for a big, fancy federal job.

00;19;39;24 - 00;19;58;20

Peggy McGuinness

But he's got an ex-girlfriend trying to, to extort money, sort of advising on an NDA type of an arrangement. So he's been around like, even even in that opening scene, the clip that you just played, that you see him before he goes in to talk to the client, he examines the car and looks at the scratch marks on the car like he's been at crime scenes.

00;19;58;23 - 00;20;17;07

Peggy McGuinness

He knows how things go down, right? He's got the kind of street knowledge that Arthur Edens, for all of his incredibly deep and like, impressive knowledge of the law and a strategic prowess, he's never been at a crime scene. Right. You don't get that vibe at all. So it's interesting.

00;20;17;09 - 00;20;32;17

Jonathan Hafetz

There's a great moment at the end of that scene where the phone rings and the client has just been involved in a hit and run. Asked if that's the police, and my client says, the police don't call. Yeah, I just think like they don't know.

00;20;32;20 - 00;20;33;10

Peggy McGuinness

How it works.

00;20;33;10 - 00;20;51;28

Jonathan Hafetz

Yeah. It works. Yeah. And I mean, that's so interesting how you lay that out. And the film really does capture those different layers. And the outer borough Manhattan, large law firm police. None. All Harvard, Yale, Stanford, NYU, Columbia Law school divide which may not be so familiar to the general public, but I think it's very familiar to people.

00;20;51;28 - 00;21;08;16

Peggy McGuinness

Oh, yeah. We even that I have conversations sometimes with people say, well, you know, I was down at the state courthouse, you know, someone who normally practices in the federal courts. It's a boy that's a different world. It's literally across the street or around the corner. If you're in Manhattan, it's around the corner. If you're in Brooklyn, it's across the street.

00;21;08;19 - 00;21;32;23

Peggy McGuinness

But they are worlds apart. The local practice in the in the state courts, even if it's commercial litigation versus federal civil litigation, local bread and butter, local crimes, grinding it out. DA's versus public defenders versus the federal courthouse and federal crimes and the federal defender's services. They just there's just a completely different feel. I mean, you know, when you go into the buildings that you're in a different space.

00;21;33;00 - 00;21;42;23

Jonathan Hafetz

It's a different world. You walk in. I mean, at least before the pandemic, the federal courthouse in Manhattan is like, feels like a temple, right? You just go across state Supreme Court. It's like a train station that trains, right?

00;21;42;25 - 00;21;51;13

Peggy McGuinness

It's like a circus. It's it's like it's like old Roman Forum or something. Yeah, it is the difference. It's it's it's the pantheon versus the and type of a type of a vibe. Yeah.

00;21;51;15 - 00;21;58;24

Jonathan Hafetz

It's different. Tony Gilroy I mean I don't know how much this really related to it, but I was born in Manhattan, grew up in, I think, Orange County. So he may.

00;21;58;24 - 00;22;22;18

Peggy McGuinness

Have seen the Orange County. Yeah. I mean, the dad lives in Orange County, right. And that's like a lot of cops live outside the city. Yeah, that also resonated. Like, I grew up in new Jersey and my parents had actually lived in Orange County before I was born. But the other thing I know about Tony Gilroy, I don't know if how much he got from this, but, you know, he did The Bourne Identity, I believe, with Doug Liman and Doug Lyman's father.

00;22;22;21 - 00;22;44;26

Peggy McGuinness

So Arthur Liman, who was the great Paul Wise litigator. And, there's a few names in this film that just felt very Paul Wise, but one of them was Arthur, and the other one is Marty, because there's two famous Marty litigators at Paul Weiss. There's also Marty Lipton at Wachtell. But, it occurred to me that maybe Tony Gilroy had, had some conversations with Doug Lyman about his father and his experiences as a top litigator.

00;22;44;26 - 00;22;45;21

Peggy McGuinness

Paul Wise.

00;22;45;24 - 00;23;03;14

Jonathan Hafetz

Yeah, I suspect that there's a there there there's some truth to that. That seems quite right, given what you're saying. That's really interesting. One of Michael's brother, Jean, works on the police force. Right. And he gets burned doing a favor for Michael and so he kind of points to the status of Michael Clayton as kind of being in the middle.

00;23;03;14 - 00;23;15;04

Jonathan Hafetz

Right? Basically, he says, the cops think you're a lawyer and the lawyers think you're a cop. Like, who are you? Do you even know who you are? So there's an interesting line. He touched on that a little bit before. But anything else about between lawyers and police?

00;23;15;06 - 00;23;35;26

Peggy McGuinness

Yeah. I mean, I'm not sure that Gene means it. His brother Gene means that quite literally, I think it does relate to this sort of class, you know, Manhattan versus outer borough divide that is depicted, to the cops and the rest of his family and probably to his old friends in the Queens DA's office. Michael's now part of big law, right?

00;23;35;26 - 00;23;59;16

Peggy McGuinness

He's now of counsel or something in this elite practice at a Wall Street firm. They don't know the internal arrangement that he has with the Cantor Bock. That's the name of the firm management that we know about from watching his interactions with, Marty Bock and to the partners. You know, there's this great clip, which maybe we should play, where Arthur depicts him as a bagman.

00;23;59;18 - 00;24;12;16

Jonathan Hafetz

Yeah. So let's play that clip now. This is a conversation between Arthur Edens, one of the most prominent litigators at the firm, played by Tom Wilkinson and Michael Clayton.

00;24;12;18 - 00;24;41;11

Film Dialogue

Arthur Arthur. Oh, up. I think it is. Kevin. Making a delivery. No no no. Oh, that's very funny. No, no, nothing like that. I hear. Here, take one place. It's really it's it's it's still warm. It's best bread I ever tasted. So. Welcome home. Oh, I know the, the hotel. I'm sorry. I was beginning to feel a little overwhelmed.

00;24;41;14 - 00;24;59;17

Film Dialogue

But you're feeling better now? Oh, yeah. Yes, yes. Much better. That's. It's not enough to call me back. Well, I was trying to, gather my thoughts. That's before I called you, and that's what I was doing. How's that going, you guys? It's good. Very good. But I just, Well, I just need to make my thoughts a little bit.

00;24;59;20 - 00;25;10;19

Film Dialogue

More precise. That's that's my goal. As good as this feels, you know where it goes. No no no no, no, you're wrong. I mean, what makes this feel good is that I don't know where it goes.

00;25;10;22 - 00;25;17;27

Film Dialogue

How do I talk to you, Arthur? So you hear me like a child and not like everything's fine.

00;25;17;29 - 00;25;35;28

Film Dialogue

What's the secret? Because I need you to hear me. Well, I, I hear everything. Just hear this. You need help before this goes too far. You need help. You got great cards here. If you keep your clothes on, you can do pretty much any goddamn thing you want. You want out? You're out. Do you want to bake bread?

00;25;35;28 - 00;25;51;21

Film Dialogue

Go with God. There's only one wrong answer in this whole goddamn pile, and you've got your arms wrapped around. I said I was sorry you thought the hotel was overwhelming. You keep pissing on this case, and they're going to cut you off the knees. I don't know what you're talking about. They're covering for you. I'm telling them everything's fine.

00;25;51;21 - 00;26;08;17

Film Dialogue

You're fine. Everything is going to be fine. Everybody's cool. I'm out there running this price of genius story to anybody who will listen. And then I wake up this morning and I hear that you're calling this girl from Wisconsin, and you're messing with documents and God knows whatever else. How could you take everything away from you, your partnership?

00;26;08;19 - 00;26;25;26

Film Dialogue

How can you know who are going to pull your life? What do you tell me? Are you denying it? How does he know? I don't know, I don't give a shit. You're tapping my phone. How can you tell me how to walk you through a parking lot? You're chasing a girl through a parking lot with your dick hanging out.

00;26;26;02 - 00;26;43;06

Film Dialogue

You think she didn't get off the phone with you on speed dial? No, she wouldn't do that. I know that you think that your judgment is state of the art right now. You're putting everything on the table. You need to stop and think this through. I will help you think this through. I'll find somebody to help you think this through.

00;26;43;08 - 00;27;05;21

Film Dialogue

Don't do this. You're making it easy for them. Michael. I have great affection for you. And you lead a very rich and interesting life. But you're a bagman, not an attorney. If your intention was to have me committed, you should have kept me in Wisconsin, where the arrest report, the videotape, eyewitness accounts of my inappropriate behavior would have had jurisdictional relevance.

00;27;05;24 - 00;27;27;26

Film Dialogue

I have no criminal record in the state of New York, and the single determining criterion for involuntary incarceration is danger. Is the defendant a danger to himself or others? You think you got the horses for that? Well, good luck and God bless. But I tell you, this. The last place you want to see me is in court. I'm not the enemy.

00;27;27;28 - 00;27;30;18

Film Dialogue

Then who are you?

00;27;30;21 - 00;27;33;07

Jonathan Hafetz

So what do you make of this exchange?

00;27;33;10 - 00;27;59;12

Peggy McGuinness

First of all, it shows we have something that we have to try and figure out is the audience, which is. And by the way, I think Tom Wilkinson is brilliant playing Arthur Edens in this film. How sick is he really? Is he really sick? I'm using air quotes here. Right? Is he really having a mental breakdown? Because as Michael Clayton says, he's been off his meds, or is he finally seeing his life for what it is and has decided he cannot continue living in the way he's been living at anymore?

00;27;59;17 - 00;28;15;29

Peggy McGuinness

You know, anyways, we could talk a little bit more maybe about Arthur and what it means for Arthur, but I think this challenge to Michael comes. We can circle back to that later. Right. What comes back later in the film? Michael is trying to figure out who he is. I mean, when we meet him at the beginning of the film, he's, gambling, right?

00;28;15;29 - 00;28;31;28

Peggy McGuinness

He's got he's a gambling addict. I guess he's a recovering gambling addict because at one point he says he hadn't been at a table in a few months. Then he's back at the gambling tables. We know he's divorced. You know, he's juggling paying child support and his gambling problems. And he's got another brother, the non cop brother who's an addict, right?

00;28;31;28 - 00;28;51;01

Peggy McGuinness

And he's just coming off a failed investment with his addict brother in a restaurant. This also, by the way, is a good depiction of the seedier side of New York. He owes money to the mom. Right. So there's a great scene where, he's asking to pay up the 75 grand that his brother owes on a note, and he doesn't owe it to very nice people.

00;28;51;03 - 00;29;03;29

Peggy McGuinness

And if he doesn't get paid in the next couple of days, they're going to come after Michael. So he really is straddling, you know, very elite world and the CD world. But should we talk maybe a little bit more about Arthur and the case?

00;29;04;02 - 00;29;22;04

Jonathan Hafetz

Yeah. So just moving to Arthur in the case. So basically, Arthur Edens, Tom Wilkinson, who I agree is just phenomenal in this role learns that, you know, Earth, right. Knew the pesticide that it was using was carcinogenic and would have harmful effects on people. And so they're being sued, the class action lawsuit against them by the victims and families.

00;29;22;07 - 00;29;41;23

Jonathan Hafetz

And so, yeah, he acts out in a strange way. And you were talking about what was his motivation? I think he's having some kind of existential crisis. I mean, you know, he's been defending this corporation for the last ten years, hard nosed litigator. And he just can't do it any more. He can't bridge the gap. And there's a one moment where he strips naked or starts to strip naked at a deposition.

00;29;42;00 - 00;29;56;08

Jonathan Hafetz

So he seems to be kind of going off the rails. And Michael's job with Arthur to try to keep Arthur kind of rein Arthur back in, but I guess. Yeah, with Arthur Edens. What else can you say about Arthur and what was going on? What other options did he have when he kind of learns what really happened at you?

00;29;56;08 - 00;29;59;07

Jonathan Hafetz

North, in terms of what was known about the pesticide?

00;29;59;10 - 00;30;21;24

Peggy McGuinness

Yeah. I mean, I think that clip that you played that the exchange he has with Michael, where he refers to him as a bag man and not a lawyer, demonstrates to me that he hasn't lost it completely, right? That he's completely rational and can still be a brilliant litigator when he's focused. And that maybe, as you say, this is an existential crisis as much of a mental illness break what I think this film does.

00;30;21;24 - 00;30;43;05

Peggy McGuinness

It's an extreme version of what I think all lawyers have to go through mentally, which is whether you're a prosecutor, a criminal defense lawyer, corporate litigator, whether you're on the plaintiff's side suing on a contingency basis or, you know, on the defense side in big law, making massive amounts of hourly billings for the firm as as Arthur recounts in his one exchange with Michael.

00;30;43;07 - 00;31;05;07

Peggy McGuinness

And you're working to keep the case at bay, and that it's a central question and it's very difficult question if you believe in the rule of law, which is how do you reconcile the morality of the position you occupy within society? And I think whether Arthur's speaking through his illness or he's seeing the light, he intends to bring the whole ship down with him by bringing to light this smoking gun evidence to the north.

00;31;05;07 - 00;31;33;08

Peggy McGuinness

Shareholders. I mean, it really is one of those things where a litigator, you see it in your heart sinks, right? Oops. Here's the internal evidence. And every case has some version of this. I've been in that situation where you're reviewing the emails, you see the emails where someone tells the truth internally, right? And then say, oh, okay, so someone inside the corporation did know this bad thing and that bad thing that should have been disclosed at a particular point of time in order to meet whatever the legal obligations were, was not.

00;31;33;08 - 00;31;44;11

Peggy McGuinness

So we can get into some technicalities here. So one of the questions I think about the document is was it a privileged document. So that's something that I think later Tilda Swinton character claims that it is.

00;31;44;13 - 00;31;51;01

Jonathan Hafetz

This is a document. This is a memo or internal memo signed by the CEO saying they knew about the risks.

00;31;51;04 - 00;32;13;18

Peggy McGuinness

It may have. And the question is, remember, the CEO used to be the general counsel. So the question is was it sent to him? Was it sent to now this is this is something that is litigated all day long in big law, which is is the internal corporate communication a privilege document or not a privilege document? And lots of litigation, I think, rises and falls on this question.

00;32;13;21 - 00;32;28;13

Peggy McGuinness

It was something that I had no understanding of when I was in law school. But one of the first things I did when I was on a big case was work on a privilege log. And when you're in a case that has millions and millions and millions of pages of documents, your privileged log is hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands of documents.

00;32;28;13 - 00;32;55;00

Peggy McGuinness

Right? And the privileged log says what each document is and then puts the reason why it's privileged memo from general counsel to the CEO dated on such and such on the topic of X, this is why we claim privilege. And then the other side will have a chance to challenge the privilege. So it's not clear from the film I'm not getting into, you know, like all good law movies, you have to sort of sometimes clear the brush on the actual accuracy and the sort of day to day grind of litigation.

00;32;55;00 - 00;33;16;12

Peggy McGuinness

But there's two things that might happen in this circumstance, right? The first thing that might happen if Arthur had come across this document, was he could have concluded that the documents are not privileged. Right. And I would have said to, you know, this document has to be produced to the other side, which would be litigation ending. Right. And it's the kind of thing that you might before you produce documents, start your settlement negotiations.

00;33;16;15 - 00;33;33;21

Peggy McGuinness

Certainly if you're in federal court, you've got protective orders to make sure none of the discovery documents can be disclosed to anyone outside the litigation, etc.. So the second thing is just to sort of cut to the chase, right? Which is what happens, which is to encourage settlement. So we again, the film kind of elides the timeline here.

00;33;33;21 - 00;34;04;07

Peggy McGuinness

So it's not clear. It's not clear to me that Marty Bock knows about this document and if so, how he knew about it. But he seems to be rushing to settlement in the wake of Arthur's death anyway, right? Or even, I should say, in the wake of Arthur's breakdown, even before his death. So you know this question of how do you reconcile the morality of the position you occupy within society, within these big challenges, carcinogens, the use of pesticides to produce our food, the industrialized food chain.

00;34;04;07 - 00;34;20;24

Peggy McGuinness

I mean, you can sort of expand out who is you? North. You know, it's the reason we get cheap food. What's the cost of cheap food? You know, chemicals in our soil. Who gets exposed to that? Farm workers, small farmers, you know. So these are these are big, big societal questions that each lawyer in this case is playing a role in.

00;34;20;24 - 00;34;31;26

Peggy McGuinness

And how do you reconcile that? So what did you think? I mean, what did you think about this sort of moral dilemma? We could talk about Arthur first and maybe talk about Michael, but for Arthur, what sort of struck you as his moral dilemma?

00;34;31;28 - 00;34;51;11

Jonathan Hafetz

Yeah, I think that for Arthur, I mean, he's been defending this company for so long and probably defended other companies like them. There's always been bad stuff. But I think, you know, that's a defense lawyer for large corporations. He's had to work around. But I think he's just struck by the nature of this document and this information. It just seems like to him, this is the ultimate smoking gun, right?

00;34;51;12 - 00;35;07;20

Jonathan Hafetz

He I think, can't live with himself anymore. But what he does in terms of the options you laid out, if he could have gone to, you know, to their general counsel. Right. And said until just went in and said, you've got to produce this or, you know, we'd sell this case now, but instead he kind of becomes he refers to as like Shiva the destroyer, right?

00;35;07;20 - 00;35;26;00

Jonathan Hafetz

He's going to publicize this and blow the whole thing up. There's also this subplot where he identifies and is taken. I don't mean a romantic way, but with a young girl who was family was affected. She was an innocent good. And for some reason she just makes him confront this total inconsistency and duality in his life that he can't he can't bridge that gap anymore.

00;35;26;00 - 00;35;45;15

Jonathan Hafetz

I mean, that that was my take. So yeah, yeah, yeah. It's interesting how the other characters to right deal with this. I mean, we'll come back to Michael Clayton at the end. But the other characters confronting this dilemma, as you mentioned, Marty Bach, right, who's played by Sydney Pollack, he's a name partner, major partner at the firm. He seems very levelheaded, and he's running the firm.

00;35;45;17 - 00;36;16;03

Jonathan Hafetz

And there's this moment where Michael Clayton comes to Sydney Pollack. Marty Bach, and says, hey, Arthur may have been onto something here. This is after Arthur dies and, you know, maybe something was going wrong with you North and there may be something really wrong. And actually, I'll play this clip. Now, this is the conversation between Marty Bach and Michael Clayton in which Marty Bach responds to Michael Clayton raising these concerns, as well as Michael Clayton's need for money to pay the debt, that he owes for his addict brother.

00;36;16;03 - 00;36;19;11

Jonathan Hafetz

So here's a clip of this conversation.

00;36;19;13 - 00;36;36;08

Film Dialogue

My phone's off. Is way too much going on from the phone bill. I need a minute now. We're late now. We never got to finish last night. What do you do? Close the place? Look like hell no. I left right after you left. Okay, so we've been here all night. We had to make an announcement. Jean, I need the thing.

00;36;36;08 - 00;36;57;12

Film Dialogue

That envelope. I wanted your input. I couldn't get you. I had to pull the trigger. I put Bob Nast and Kim. Probably a mistake. They're going to try to pull together a memorial service by the end of the week. And I told them to call you if they need any help. Okay, so we cut you a check this morning with some strings attached and buried.

00;36;57;14 - 00;37;16;11

Film Dialogue

Just no way around this. Mary is going to have to be involved. But my thoughts on this something. What do you mean, undo what you mean? What if he wasn't crazy? What if he was right? Right? About what? If we're on the wrong side? One side, wrong way again. All of it. This is news. This case reached from day one, 15 years in.

00;37;16;11 - 00;37;17;25

Film Dialogue

I got to tell you how we pay the rent.

00;37;17;28 - 00;37;20;10

Film Dialogue

So what would they do? What would they do if you went public?

00;37;20;10 - 00;37;37;17

Film Dialogue

What would they do? Are you fucking soft? They're doing it. We don't straighten the settlement out in the next 24 hours. They're going to withhold $9 million in fees. Then they're going to pull out the video of Arthur doing his flash dance in Milwaukee. They're going to sue us for legal malpractice, except there won't be anything from the win, because by then, the merger with London will be dead.

00;37;37;17 - 00;37;48;17

Film Dialogue

We'll be selling off the goddamn furniture. That's 80. Come on. At the bonus, you got a three year contract at your current numbers. That's assuming this all works out.

00;37;48;19 - 00;37;56;08

Jonathan Hafetz

What did you think of what Marty Bach says in telling Michael Clayton there? There are no angles in his business. I mean, what's his response to the whole thing?

00;37;56;15 - 00;38;16;09

Peggy McGuinness

Yes. Let me first praise Sydney Pollack. I just love him in this movie. And I think, you know, he's a great director. The late Sydney Pollack, it reminded me of his depiction of the CEO of noir Grace in a Civil Action, which is a good legal film, not as good as the book, but a film that has lots of things to say about environmental litigation.

00;38;16;09 - 00;38;36;15

Peggy McGuinness

For sure. For the plaintiff side. And what's great about the way he depicts Marty, Bob, there's a world weariness to him, but there's also an absolute complete comfort with his power. And he's a master of the game. There's that little exchange where he's handed the phone with the Wall Street Journal reporter, and he just shuts her down, knowing that she doesn't have a story and won't make the deadline.

00;38;36;15 - 00;38;56;12

Peggy McGuinness

And he can keep the settlement negotiations secret for another 24 hours. So he's terrific in it. And that really resonated the detail of even his townhouse on the Upper East Side. I feel like I've been in that townhouse, as a litigation partner I know has a townhouse. It looks exactly like that. So he plays a man accustomed to power, and he knows exactly how things are operating.

00;38;56;12 - 00;39;17;02

Peggy McGuinness

And by the way, I should say the other thing that really was the such a factually kind of accurate subplot point was the merger with quote unquote, London. I don't know if you remember, in the early aughts. So many U.S. firms were merging with British firms, and that really did change the nature of practice. I mean, what practice was like in the mid 90s to what it is in 2023.

00;39;17;02 - 00;39;32;24

Peggy McGuinness

It's night and day in terms of, you know, used to be made partner to firm and you stayed there your whole career. And there was a certain culture to each firm. And now it's, you know, it's definitely winner takes all high flying contracts for partners that bring a book with them. And there's a lot of lateral moves that we didn't see before.

00;39;32;24 - 00;39;53;03

Peggy McGuinness

And these mergers was part of that big shift in New York legal practice and international legal practice in the early aughts, a whole separate conversation. But that was, I thought, a very interesting little subplot, because it shows at Marty at the end of the day, he's focused on the bottom line of the firm. He's running this firm, and he wants to maximize their profits.

00;39;53;03 - 00;40;11;01

Peggy McGuinness

It means not losing this important client, not having the embarrassment of having screwed up the case, and getting it settled so he can move on to the merger. And, you know, presumably he's close to retirement. Go out to the Hamptons with his golden parachute or to Aspen or wherever his, favorite second, third or fourth houses. And he'll be done.

00;40;11;01 - 00;40;26;20

Peggy McGuinness

And he doesn't have time for Michael's moral dilemma, much less are there. There's a there's a line, I think a throwaway line somewhere in one of the scenes where he says, Arthur, downtown is a disaster, like he should be on the Upper East Side with the residents. Right. But you got to stay within your lane kind of a thing.

00;40;26;23 - 00;40;30;02

Jonathan Hafetz

And he goes downtown and he gets exposed to ideas like.

00;40;30;04 - 00;40;30;26

Peggy McGuinness

Right, right, right.

00;40;30;27 - 00;40;33;09

Jonathan Hafetz

Uptown, downtown. I don't deliver data now, but it's.

00;40;33;09 - 00;40;35;05

Peggy McGuinness

A little dated because, you know.

00;40;35;08 - 00;40;37;01

Jonathan Hafetz

Several generations ago was a real thing, right? Yeah.

00;40;37;03 - 00;40;54;17

Peggy McGuinness

When a year ago, Tribeca was a little grittier. But, in any event. So I think one of the questions is he keeps us guessing whether he knew about the shenanigans at North. And by shenanigans, I mean hiring the corporate spies slash hitmen, right? I mean, it's sort of the movie takes it to an extreme. There is corporate espionage, right?

00;40;54;17 - 00;41;12;24

Peggy McGuinness

These guys are kind of a one stop shop for wiretapping and assassination. But so does he know that Arthur's phone was tapped? That's a question that I have. I don't know, but as to his response to Michael, it reminded me of an actual conversation I had with a partner at my old firm, a case that I did that actually did go to a hearing.

00;41;12;24 - 00;41;32;09

Peggy McGuinness

Very, very rare. And it had to do with some financial fraud. And, we heard testimony from some senior and mid-level executives that we had a mid-level accountant testify and the senior partner said, and her testimony was sort of key to us prevailing in the case. And he said, I'm always surprised when someone gets up there and tells the truth.

00;41;32;12 - 00;41;53;01

Peggy McGuinness

And he said, usually they're highly paid executives get up and lie, and then our highly paid executives get up and lie. And I thought, man, that just says it all about corporate litigation. And so, you know, he was toward the end of his career this particular person. But boy, the cynicism but also kind of a world weariness sort of this is how it works.

00;41;53;03 - 00;42;10;07

Peggy McGuinness

Money changes hands. The world continues to spin. They'll get to sell the division that they wanted to sell, and they can tell the shareholders a story that will keep the price up. And everyone will just keep grinding it out. Right. That's sort of the sense you get with some of this corporate litigation. So anyway, that's how I took that little exchange.

00;42;10;07 - 00;42;12;28

Peggy McGuinness

Felt very true.

00;42;13;00 - 00;42;23;19

Jonathan Hafetz

It really did. And Marty Bock, played by Sydney Pollack, knew there was trouble. Right. Because of Arthur's getting naked. The deposition, you know, was a potential huge malpractice lawsuit.

00;42;23;26 - 00;42;30;19

Peggy McGuinness

Should we stop here to say pro tip for all law students, try not to take your clothes off in the middle of a deposition.

00;42;30;22 - 00;42;45;14

Jonathan Hafetz

Never a good idea. Never a good idea, right? I mean, you just going off them and then they're watching. You can see the watching the video of the deposition, the after, you know, kind of their hands on their head being like, what is going on? So go out on a limb with that. And there's the merger, which he wants to go through.

00;42;45;14 - 00;42;57;21

Jonathan Hafetz

And Michael Clayton is nervous too, right? He's nervous that his status at the firm is sort of based on his connections with these key people like Arthur and Marty Bonds. And if there's a merger, he's sort of an odd duck, right?

00;42;57;21 - 00;43;08;15

Peggy McGuinness

And he's got a handshake. Yeah, he's he's got a handshake deal. He's not on the typical partner track. And now he's got to deal with that guy Barry, who I'm assuming is going to become chair of the litigation department. Right.

00;43;08;15 - 00;43;26;28

Jonathan Hafetz

So exactly, exactly. And it's unclear there's kind of a debate on line about what did Marty Bach really know? How much did he know about my sense? I don't think he knew about the murder. Maybe he suspected. I only knew about it beforehand. But I do think he knew there was some stuff that was being pushed under the rug, and this was potentially very damaging.

00;43;26;28 - 00;43;33;03

Jonathan Hafetz

And so. But it's an open question. I don't think the film really does. How much Marty back, nobody knew there was something fishy.

00;43;33;05 - 00;43;35;07

Peggy McGuinness

Absolutely. Yeah, I think that's right.

00;43;35;09 - 00;43;55;20

Jonathan Hafetz

And then so the film kind of moves then into full thriller territory, right? When Michael Clayton realizes that Karen Crowder, the general counsel of, You know, is played by Tilda Swinton, arranged to have Arthur killed and is trying to have him. Michael Clayton, killed, too. There's a scene where Michael Clayton narrowly escapes an exploding time bomb that the man Karen hired had placed in his car.

00;43;55;21 - 00;44;10;04

Jonathan Hafetz

Then it goes forward. Karen just presents her settlement proposal to the board of, you know, saying, look, we got to settle. You know, this is why it's in our interest to settle this case. Now, you know, she knows she wants to get this resolved and wrapped up. Oh, and by the way, we can write off a huge chunk of the settlement as a tax deduction.

00;44;10;10 - 00;44;35;01

Jonathan Hafetz

So it's actually great. This is, you know, in my advice what we should do. And so she walks out of the conference room to let the board deliberate. She thinks she's finally in the clear. And then Michael Clayton kind of comes up, confronts her. She thinks he's been killed and everything's wrapped up. But there he is. And so I'm going to play a clip of the scene between Michael Clayton and Karen Crowder, where Michael Clayton confronts her and tries to move things forward.

00;44;35;04 - 00;44;51;28

Film Dialogue

To go in there. Pretty freaky, You see, Arthur, he's wandering around here somewhere. I'm kidding. Lighten up. You got one of these great mama. It's an oldie but a goodie. You got your heart raisin donor.

00;44;52;00 - 00;44;53;29

Film Dialogue

I don't know what the hell it is you think you're doing.

00;44;54;02 - 00;44;55;19

Film Dialogue

What do you think I'm doing?

00;44;55;22 - 00;45;00;23

Film Dialogue

This is over. We have a deal. Whatever that is, it's meaningless at this point.

00;45;00;26 - 00;45;10;06

Film Dialogue

You think I must have gotten it wrong? I thought you had a tentative proposal. I didn't realize you'd signed all those checks. It's a drag. I got a thousand these things. What the hell am I going to do with them?

00;45;10;08 - 00;45;11;08

Film Dialogue

I'm calling Marty.

00;45;11;10 - 00;45;19;16

Film Dialogue

Good, good. Do it. That's a great place to start. Let's find out who told him that Arthur was calling out a Kaiser. Let's find out who tapped those phones.

00;45;19;16 - 00;45;23;16

Film Dialogue

This this memorandum. Even if it's authentic, which I doubt, I highly.

00;45;23;16 - 00;45;25;00

Film Dialogue

I know what you did to Arthur.

00;45;25;00 - 00;45;27;00

Film Dialogue

It's protected. It belongs to you.

00;45;27;02 - 00;45;27;20

Film Dialogue

I know you killed.

00;45;27;21 - 00;45;29;22

Film Dialogue

It's a cut and dry case of attorney client.

00;45;29;22 - 00;45;36;21

Film Dialogue

Sick. Now, that's just not the way to go. Here, Karen. For such a smart person, you really are lost, aren't you?

00;45;36;24 - 00;45;38;01

Film Dialogue

This conversation is over.

00;45;38;02 - 00;45;55;00

Film Dialogue

I'm not the guy that you kill. I'm the guy that you by. Are you so fucking blind you don't even see what I am? And the easiest part of your whole goddamn problem. And you're going to kill me. Don't you know who I am? I'm a fixer. I'm a bagman. I do everything from shoplifting housewives to bent congressmen.

00;45;55;00 - 00;46;08;16

Film Dialogue

And you're going to kill me. What do you need, Karen? Lay it on me. You want a carry permit? You want a heads up on an insider trading subpoena? I sold out Arthur for 80 grand and a three year contract. And you're going to kill me.

00;46;08;19 - 00;46;09;21

Film Dialogue

What you want?

00;46;09;24 - 00;46;18;18

Film Dialogue

What do I want? I want more, I want out, and with this, I want everything.

00;46;18;20 - 00;46;19;20

Film Dialogue

Is there a number?

00;46;19;20 - 00;46;22;08

Film Dialogue

Ten is a number ten.

00;46;22;11 - 00;46;29;23

Film Dialogue

Ten. What? 10 million? What's it? Do you think I'm gonna get $10 million?

00;46;29;25 - 00;46;40;06

Film Dialogue

You know what's great about this? Did you read it all the way to the end? You see who signed it? Let's go into that ballroom and ask Don Jeffries if he wants to pass the half of worthy cause.

00;46;40;08 - 00;46;44;26

Film Dialogue

This would have to be a longer conversation, and it, would have to take place somewhere else.

00;46;44;29 - 00;46;53;17

Film Dialogue

Where my car. All right, I'm gonna make it easy. Let's make it five. Five and I'll forget about Arthur.

00;46;53;19 - 00;46;58;01

Film Dialogue

Five is easier. Yeah, five is something we could talk about.

00;46;58;08 - 00;47;04;22

Film Dialogue

Okay. The other five is to forget about the 468 people that you knocked off with your weed killer.

00;47;04;24 - 00;47;07;02

Film Dialogue

Let me finish up this meeting. I'll talk to you.

00;47;07;02 - 00;47;10;20

Film Dialogue

I look like I'm negotiating. Don.

00;47;10;23 - 00;47;11;18

Film Dialogue

One second.

00;47;11;23 - 00;47;20;18

Film Dialogue

Everything okay? Yes. $10 million. Bank of my choosing offshore immediately. Yes. Say it.

00;47;20;20 - 00;47;24;21

Film Dialogue

$10 million. Your account. The moment this meeting. Karen.

00;47;24;24 - 00;47;25;17

Film Dialogue

Everyone's waiting.

00;47;25;23 - 00;47;29;09

Film Dialogue

I'm coming down. You have a deal.

00;47;29;11 - 00;47;39;11

Film Dialogue

You're so fucked. What? You're fucked. Can you take a wild guess? Is that a problem? I understand what? Let me get a picture while I'm at it.

00;47;39;13 - 00;47;40;18

Film Dialogue

You don't want the money?

00;47;40;20 - 00;47;49;16

Film Dialogue

No. You keep the money, you're going to need it. This is for bothering you. Am I bothering you, Karen? I've got a whole board waiting in there. What the. What? What the hell's going on? Who are you?

00;47;49;18 - 00;48;06;08

Film Dialogue

I'm Shiva, the god of death. Run! Ronnie, I need security out here immediately. That guy right there. Stop him! Grab that guy! What are you doing here? Detectives with the NYPD. Hopefully come back with us somewhere. We spent eight.

00;48;06;11 - 00;48;16;20

Jonathan Hafetz

So we talked a little bit about this, about whether the document would have been protected. How much trouble you North was in. What did you make of this? I think great scene between Tilda Swinton and George Clooney.

00;48;16;23 - 00;48;38;20

Peggy McGuinness

Yeah. I mean, there's a lot happening there. I want to step back for just one second and say, Tilda Swinton is really the only female character in the whole film, which is the other thing that felt true of its time, which is that we're talking about power dynamics. We're talking about dynamics between men and largely white men. So this film feels dated in a way, the only diversity are the junior associates and the staff around them.

00;48;38;20 - 00;48;56;20

Peggy McGuinness

New York law practice has improved somewhat, but it's still pretty bad in terms of who holds the power. So I do want to point that out, but I will say it also felt true to me because some of the in-house counsel I dealt with, various clients, there seem to be more women than men in-house than were at the firms, and that was part of this understanding back then.

00;48;56;24 - 00;49;15;25

Peggy McGuinness

You you go in-house because the hours are better and so on. But I think the Tilda Swinton character is absolutely someone who had been, let's say, a mid-level associate at a Davis Park or a Wachtell or whatever, and, impressed the then general counsel of Sue North, who then brings her in as a deputy general counsel. Then he becomes CEO and she moves up to the general counsel job.

00;49;15;25 - 00;49;34;12

Peggy McGuinness

So you imagine that she's just been grinding it out. You know, there's some back story there about her having absolutely no life balance. What's balance? You do what you love. That's your balance, right? There's no hobbies. There's no personal library, no nothing about her. You know. Is there a marriage or their kids? What's her story? She is just the embodiment of you, North's corporate interests.

00;49;34;12 - 00;49;58;08

Peggy McGuinness

And Gilroy uses her to sort of represent the extremis of that. You do what it takes to increase shareholder value, like including hiring hitmen. So that's kind of who she is. And so this is like an extraordinary scene because you just see the wheels turning. I would say just going back before this happens, right in the scene before just to demonstrate how much Michael Clayton is smart about things, when his car blows up, he throws his wallet and watch into the flames.

00;49;58;16 - 00;50;15;09

Peggy McGuinness

He knows that he can create the belief that he's dead. We don't know what he's doing in those interim hours, but we find out in that clip that you just played, oh, this is what he's done. He's set her up. So this is the way he resolves to me. This is him resolving his moral dilemma. He's answered the question, are you a cop?

00;50;15;12 - 00;50;31;17

Peggy McGuinness

Are you a lawyer? He's both. He wants the rule of law to be the rule of law. Like he probably got into the law for the right reasons. Since dad was a cop. He's got a brother who's a cop. Probably believes there's good guys and bad guys. He doesn't like all this. This messy gray area stuff. He wants to get back in the courtroom and be that crusader.

00;50;31;17 - 00;50;53;16

Peggy McGuinness

And even ask Marty, I want to get back into litigation like I'm good at it. I want to get back in the courtroom. And so this is his opportunity to both return the favor that his brother violated some serious law when he gave him that seal for the crime scene, which was completely illegal for him to do. And so he vindicates that by giving his brother this great bribery case and probably very flashy arrest of a corporate counsel.

00;50;53;16 - 00;51;11;19

Peggy McGuinness

And I think it's that's a lobby that I'm familiar with, too, by the way. I think it's the Hilton. I'm pretty sure it's the Hilton players. There's so many scenes where you're sort of like, oh, I've been there, been in that space. But let me just say. So your question about like, what's true? So if the settlement had been done like signed, sealed and delivered and signed by the plaintiffs, it's properly done.

00;51;11;19 - 00;51;31;04

Peggy McGuinness

It can't be undone. And you hired the big firm. So you have settlements that can't be undone. Even as a junior person, I remember being on settlement discussion calls and being in settlement negotiations with government entities. And so there's all sorts of angles, including, by the way, the tax angle. I remember my first big case, like, why do we have partners from the tax department in the room?

00;51;31;04 - 00;51;50;07

Peggy McGuinness

Oh, because they got to think about like, you know, which part of the settlement gets classified as something that's a deductible expense versus what's not. I don't know the rules on that, but I know that there are rules. So that was probably an accurate kind of depiction of how it would be sold to the board. And I make it clear I've never went to a board presentation like that, but I worked with partners who had to present things to the board.

00;51;50;12 - 00;52;10;07

Peggy McGuinness

Sometimes it's a general counsel, sometimes they even bring the outside counsel in to sell the settlement to the board. In a public corporation like that, I think we talked about whether it was privilege. I mean, I think the question of whether that document was attorney client privilege, as she asserts, is a big question mark, but it accurately reflects what I would say is an aggressive stance on attorney client privilege.

00;52;10;09 - 00;52;32;20

Peggy McGuinness

She certainly would want it to be privileged, but if it's simply a scientific report, that would be absolute abuse of the privilege to just say, oh, we're going to send we're going to seek the general counsel on this scientific report simply because, you know, a scientific report that says something's bad might actually incur liability some day that wouldn't meet most definitions of seeking legal advice or being prepared for an ongoing litigation.

00;52;32;24 - 00;52;51;24

Peggy McGuinness

But I do think that's accurately reflects the sort of pushing the envelope. And it's sort of the accumulation of these aggressive positions by the big firms against maybe smaller litigants that might think about as some of the systemic problems that we have with unequal bargaining when it comes to these kinds of settlements.

00;52;51;26 - 00;53;12;23

Jonathan Hafetz

It's so interesting what Michael Payton does. Right, because he could have done what he initially threatened Tilda Swinton with, which was publicizing this and which was what Arthur Evans was going to do, but instead he the kind of the fixer does the ultimate move to get the company on the hook by, you know, not just publicizing the document, but by getting her on the recording, trying to bribe him and to make it go away.

00;53;12;23 - 00;53;32;20

Jonathan Hafetz

Right. And basically sets her up and produces evidence, the crime. So in a way, he kind of squares the circle between the fixer janitor and the aggressive lawyer and kind of used the law. And then, you know, she has nowhere to go. I mean, it's checkmate at that point, as opposed to him just going in and shaking her down and saying, hey, I'm going to publicize this, or even just going ahead and publicizing this like Arthur was going to do.

00;53;32;20 - 00;53;46;20

Jonathan Hafetz

So it's it's interesting that he does resolve that conflict that way. It's really important to what you said about what it reflects at the time, in terms of the lack of gender diversity until this went in, being the one prominent female character, and she's the general counsel, and she's kind of a nervous wreck for a lot of the film.

00;53;46;20 - 00;54;04;16

Jonathan Hafetz

I think she's just nervous anyway, but she knows something's going on and she has, like, no moral compunction either. All she's nervous about is that this not being uncovered, the only other, I think, significant woman in the film is a young woman who was one of the victims or family of the victim of the pesticide, one of the clients.

00;54;04;18 - 00;54;15;02

Jonathan Hafetz

And she's just kind of the passive victim, you know, and Arthur Evans is helping her out, but it seems dated today wasn't that long ago, but things have shifted. It definitely is something that's worth noting.

00;54;15;04 - 00;54;27;11

Peggy McGuinness

I mean, I one thing I would say that, you know, Michael, you got so much going on with this family too. Like, I don't really get into that, but he's got this complicated relationship with the little brother who helps him out, by the way, because he calls his addict little brother to pick him up in the middle of Westchester.

00;54;27;12 - 00;54;48;28

Peggy McGuinness

So that's how he's able to get out anonymously from the situation. And then he helps out his brother, the cop, by getting him this big fish case, which could unravel the murder plot like this could be a really big case for them. And so the way that the film plays, those final scenes, it's like Michael's back on the right side for a moment, but you also realize it's just a moment the systems grinding on.

00;54;48;28 - 00;55;05;14

Peggy McGuinness

And I think that final scene, you know, it's one of those to the eye of the watcher, I suppose. But I love the way that Clooney plays that scene in the back of the cab. There's so much going on in his face. And this is, well, I should say that this film, together with Syriana, those are two of my favorite Clooney films, and we'll have to when you do.

00;55;05;20 - 00;55;16;18

Peggy McGuinness

Season two of the podcast will do, international law firms and Syriana, because it's a great film about geopolitics and U.S. foreign policy and the practice of international law. So that that's a whole other really?

00;55;16;20 - 00;55;17;07

Jonathan Hafetz

That's a day.

00;55;17;07 - 00;55;29;28

Peggy McGuinness

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But Clooney is great in that, too. But but there's sort of this sense that he's riding this cab to nowhere. He's for now resolved his moral dilemma. He's definitely not going back to that. The firm merged with the London firm. They're not hiring him. Right. It's like.

00;55;30;01 - 00;55;31;07

Jonathan Hafetz

Yeah, he's on the outside, right?

00;55;31;08 - 00;55;45;22

Peggy McGuinness

He's right because he's chosen his side. He's in with the cops, you know, with his brother and maybe his pals in the DA's office. And he'll be an important witness for the case brought by the Manhattan DA's office. And, you know, so you can imagine how this might all play out. But anyway, it's a great scene.

00;55;45;25 - 00;56;01;05

Jonathan Hafetz

Guy really has that long shot of him in the back of the car. Yeah. You referred to the conversation between him and Sidney Powell, like the Marty Barr character, where Michael Clayton talks about how he wanted to be a lawyer. Maybe he could have been a lawyer. And Sydney Pollack shutting down and says, who knows if you would have been any good.

00;56;01;05 - 00;56;07;05

Jonathan Hafetz

I've seen many people and you've got a niche now. Right now you found your place, but he no longer has his place to end.

00;56;07;07 - 00;56;08;03

Peggy McGuinness

Exactly.

00;56;08;05 - 00;56;26;11

Jonathan Hafetz

So in terms of looking at Michael Clayton and putting him in a long line of Hollywood hero lawyers, one legal scholar or a camera has characterized the film as a neo noir film. And so here's what he says about Michael Clayton in the film noir genre, as well as what it signals about lawyers circa 2007 when the film was released.

00;56;26;13 - 00;56;48;18

Jonathan Hafetz

So, he says, Michael Clayton's affiliation with the film noir genre signals a meaningful shift in the public perception of lawyers. Inside and outside this, the lawyer protagonist is no longer portrayed as a decent, quiet man on the outskirts of society, ready to fight and rescue the community when the need arises. Clayton also resonates with film noir as hardboiled, cynical, big city dweller.

00;56;48;20 - 00;57;08;02

Jonathan Hafetz

Even when exposing a corrupt corporation and bringing it down, Clayton remains trapped as ever, because in the asphalt jungle of film noir, one can run but never break free. They've turned to film noir. The signals, accommodates and enhances a bleak mode of cynical despair regarding lawyers, as well as the hope of civil rights and rule of law that they once stood for.

00;57;08;04 - 00;57;13;23

Jonathan Hafetz

You think that maps onto what we were saying about that last scene where Michael Clayton is in the back of the car after taking down, you know.

00;57;13;23 - 00;57;35;16

Peggy McGuinness

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think I probably do. I mean, you know, we just talked about that line from the clip you played of Marty reminding Michael when he says, I don't have to remind you how we pay the bills around here. I mean, that reflects a deep cynicism. The wealthy client at the beginning of the film wants to lie about the hit and run, you know, wants to cover up that it had direct knowledge of the harm that its products would cause and put them on the market.

00;57;35;16 - 00;58;01;09

Peggy McGuinness

Anyway. Michael wants to get out of his gambling addiction and his drug addict brother's debt to the mob. Arthur wants redemption for a life representing the universe of the world. And Marty, Bob just wants a soft landing and, you know, seal the deal on this merger. I mean, it feels real. And maybe where the United States was, you know, the height of the war in Iraq and, you know, just six years after the attacks of 9/11 in New York.

00;58;01;09 - 00;58;19;11

Peggy McGuinness

Right? So it was made in 2007. What I was thinking is just preparing to chat with you today. Jonathan is just like if you read the Trump indictment over the conspiracy to overturn the election, I think every single one of the unindicted Coconspirators is an attorney. One was a former U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York and the mayor of New York.

00;58;19;14 - 00;58;25;00

Peggy McGuinness

Another was a former law school dean. Others practiced at very prestigious firms.

00;58;25;03 - 00;58;25;29

Jonathan Hafetz

But was in DOJ.

00;58;25;29 - 00;58;33;16

Peggy McGuinness

And and one was a senior. Exactly. And one of the coconspirators was a senior official at the US Department of Justice at the time. He engaged in the conspiracy.

00;58;33;23 - 00;58;36;15

Jonathan Hafetz

We assume. Again, we don't know for sure, but but based on our.

00;58;36;16 - 00;58;58;14

Peggy McGuinness

Yeah. Based on. Yeah. And and we we don't know whether they will be indicted, but, unindicted coconspirator. Right. So let's think about this. It's very hard for me to believe that their actions in aid of overturning the election of 2020 were the first actions that these individuals took in their careers as attorneys that crossed an ethical line.

00;58;58;16 - 00;59;22;16

Peggy McGuinness

I find that hard to believe. It may be. It may be that the circumstances of 2020 just caused them to cross this ethical line. But I, I think it's fair to say that maybe the profession is still in a film noir moment or neo noir, I'm sure, if that's the right terminology. But I do think that we're in a situation where part of the broader forces in society and those forces include, you know, corporate power and globalization of corporate power.

00;59;22;18 - 00;59;41;03

Peggy McGuinness

And how do law firms fit in with that? How does legal representation fit in with that? You know, the rule of law is being challenged everywhere around the globe. And you go back to basics, you know, of course, you know, war criminals need lawyers. The little victims of pesticides need lawyers, the big corporations need lawyers, too, and so on.

00;59;41;05 - 01;00;04;03

Peggy McGuinness

But we know that where the money and the power is, is going to distort the process and the behavior within the process. And I think that's what this film captures, right? All those little ways in which individuals make moral compromises. Right? The cop makes the moral compromise because it's a favor for his brother. You know, maybe some a junior associate makes a moral compromise by pushing the envelope on claims of attorney client privilege.

01;00;04;05 - 01;00;21;22

Peggy McGuinness

Whatever it might be. Like all of these, they're not always clear lines. If this were a law school classroom, we'd have our students debating. Was it right for the brother to give him the extra seal that broke the chain of evidence that he could uncover the real plot for the murder? Morally, it seems correct, but that's not how chain of evidence works, right?

01;00;21;22 - 01;00;37;24

Peggy McGuinness

You completely destroyed the crime scene so we can find all of these ways to say these steps contribute to what you know is depicted as a systemic does malaise, I would say hanging over law practice, not a feel good film. It's not a feel good film. It's a brilliant film, but it's not a feel good film.

01;00;37;26 - 01;00;52;02

Jonathan Hafetz

No, it's not, and it could be right. There's the moment of triumph at the end, and I think the first time you watch, you don't know what Michael Clayton. No, you're right, you don't know. It looks like he's shaking down, you know, Earth and Tilda Swinton so he can have a nice little buyout. But then. Right. That's the flip when he does.

01;00;52;02 - 01;01;07;08

Jonathan Hafetz

And then it's a recording and he's turned to capture on tape to bring justice to the case. So in that sense, the trial. Right. The cops come in and the brother comes in, he's got his big case, Tilda Swinton probably going to jail, right? It's going to be publicized. But Michael Clayton, as we were talking about, is on the outside, right?

01;01;07;08 - 01;01;12;16

Jonathan Hafetz

It's not since it ends on a kind of cynical note, there's like not a place necessarily for someone like him.

01;01;12;18 - 01;01;27;12

Peggy McGuinness

Right. And I think it could have gone either way. Right. Because the other thing he could have done, because he threw the wallet and the watch in there and everyone thinks he's dead, is he could have taken the 5 or $10 million and gone to the Caymans or, you know, disappeared with offshore cash. And, that would have meant disrupting his life.

01;01;27;12 - 01;02;01;17

Peggy McGuinness

You know, he had a close son and the other relationships. But it's interesting how it could have believably gone either way. And I'd be curious to get your take on it. This film really resonated with me, but I know a lot about New York and New York law practice, and I wonder whether it would be difficult to access some of the subtleties and the nuances of the power structures if one were, let's say, a foreign student studying in the U.S who's trying to get a handle on what is big firm litigation like this might be a little too extreme, you know, if it or if it teaches lessons about like how to be a good

01;02;01;17 - 01;02;19;20

Peggy McGuinness

lawyer. I don't think it does. Right. I think it tells us something about power and power structures and how they operate in New York in the early mid-aughts in a really accurate way. But I do think I mentioned it before. I want to mention it again, because I do think Syriana, for different reasons. I know the George Clooney film.

01;02;19;20 - 01;02;42;13

Peggy McGuinness

I think it's Steven Gagan. I don't know if that's how he pronounces his last name, who wrote and directed that, but it's about the Middle East, and it's about a multinational corporations and the oil business and U.S. foreign policy and geopolitics. And it's loosely based on the CIA operatives memoirs. So it really gets into how corporate power intersects with geopolitics in a way that I think is quite interesting.

01;02;42;13 - 01;03;08;02

Peggy McGuinness

And in that film, the moral dilemma is borne by the character played by Jeff, brilliantly by Jeffrey Wright. And I won't give any spoilers, but it's, shall we say, the moral redemption may not be what one might have hoped. But Christopher Plummer plays brilliantly. A senior partner at a D.C. firm who's got his fingers in every pot, including the Gulf monarchies and the US State Department in the white House and so on.

01;03;08;02 - 01;03;13;09

Peggy McGuinness

It's another great film that skirts on legal practice and legal questions, so I highly recommend that one as well in the draft.

01;03;13;10 - 01;03;31;21

Jonathan Hafetz

And it'll be great to have you back on to talk about it. I agree it's a nice companion piece to Michael Clayton. So before we wrap up in any anything else on Michael Clayton and why? Well, why you recommend that people see this film in addition to being extremely entertaining. You know, it's now 15 or so years old, but, anyone hasn't seen it.

01;03;31;23 - 01;03;54;23

Peggy McGuinness

Yeah. Environmental litigation, I think, is a useful tool for teaching a lot of aspects of the law because it's it's a set of facts that most students and most non-lawyers can get their heads around. So another reason why a civil action, I think, worked as a book and as a film. Because if you try to do a film about mispricing of stock options, some of the films that try to explain the 2008 financial crisis, they don't work very well.

01;03;54;23 - 01;04;17;04

Peggy McGuinness

It's very hard to explain how markets work and how pricing works in a visual medium. But what's so great about this film is that I think more than any other film that I've seen, it made the work of the law firm translate in a visual medium, and it spent zero time in a courtroom. And that's very important because most litigators spend zero time in a courtroom.

01;04;17;06 - 01;04;41;17

Peggy McGuinness

There is nary a judge to be seen. And that also felt very true. I think so many films, misleadingly make the general public and law students and others think it's courtrooms, it's courtrooms, it's courtrooms and courtrooms, and it's almost never courtrooms. The big decisions, the the life altering decisions almost always happen outside the courtroom in these cases.

01;04;41;19 - 01;05;03;24

Jonathan Hafetz

Yeah. I'm so glad you mentioned that, because I do think there's that view of legal films being courtroom dramas, but most of them are criminal. But even their courtroom trials are vanishing, right? II 90% of all cases play out a little different in federal and state systems than the civil side, which is what this is about. Virtually nothing goes to trial, and certainly not nothing where the stakes are this high, right?

01;05;03;24 - 01;05;17;24

Jonathan Hafetz

There's there's too much to lose. And it tends to be just a business decision. And it's all about the motion practice and the discovery and getting into the best settlement posture, which is kind of where this case was ending up until, you know, Michael Clayton was the big I mean.

01;05;17;26 - 01;05;35;00

Peggy McGuinness

If we were to bring this up today, if this were 20, 23, you north would be figuring out how to spin off the division that made the pesticide and put it into bankruptcy so that you wouldn't have to pay out anything. Right? I mean, this is where we are at with complex litigation, where, you know, the corporate side is just finding more and more intricate.

01;05;35;03 - 01;05;59;06

Peggy McGuinness

Lawyer advised ways to avoid courtrooms and avoid public review of the thing that caused the harm in these toxic tort cases and that sort of thing. But yeah, I think, you're not going to learn much about toxic torts from watching this film, right? So even though that's what's the background, you're going to learn about power and you're going to learn about how power is wielded in particular spaces and places and how lawyers fit into that.

01;05;59;11 - 01;06;28;27

Peggy McGuinness

And I think that's that's the lesson. And, that's what I thought was just so brilliantly depicted, which is why I think it's just a good thriller. Generally, you don't have to be a lawyer necessarily to have enjoyed the film, and it is just so brilliantly written. You know, the banter at the gambling table, the conversations between, George Clooney and his son, as I said, Sydney Pollack, the way that he carries himself and just his little quips throughout the film, like it just all felt very real to me.

01;06;28;29 - 01;06;41;03

Jonathan Hafetz

While the plot goes in, what won't be kind of fantastical directions, in some case with the hitmen, it is really very realistic and exactly what you're saying, right? You know, culture that interaction around the law firm, and some of the ethical dilemmas.

01;06;41;11 - 01;07;06;26

Peggy McGuinness

And I also it's one of these, I think, as a device taking things to the extreme to actually kill a person as opposed to just quote unquote, kill their career. And we see this happen. Someone isn't so cooperative with the client. They get iced out, they don't get the bonus at the end of the I mean, I'm no longer in big law practice, but I operate on the margins and I've got friends and it's become ruthless just in terms of the internal politics of these firms.

01;07;07;03 - 01;07;29;28

Peggy McGuinness

And, you know, small mistakes can mean being ousted from the partnership. Like just things have changed in ways that just didn't exist before. Limited liability forms. Crept into the big firms in New York in the early aughts. So, yeah, I think anyone who's going into big law would do well to watch it as an extremist version of a vibe that is real.

01;07;29;28 - 01;07;32;03

Peggy McGuinness

If I can use that as my closing quote.

01;07;32;06 - 01;07;45;01

Jonathan Hafetz

That's a perfect closing quote. Thank you. I want to thank you for coming on and talking about Michael Clayton, and just sharing all of your wide ranging expertise. It's been great to talk to you about this movie, and I'm excited to have you back on to talk about Syriana.

01;07;45;05 - 01;07;49;11

Peggy McGuinness

I would be delighted to come back on and talk about Syriana. Well, thank you, I think.