Harry's Law

I love this show.

There was a time I wanted to be an attorney, and if I had ever really pursued that fleeting passion, I hope I might have been an attorney like Harry (Harriett Kohn) on "Harry's Law."  She accepts cases that are morally necessary for her to defend.  She doesn't make very much money at what she does, but she pursues justice with vigor and righteousness.  I love that about her character.  She surrounds herself with diversified people who have personalities out the yingyang, and as the show unfolds, each personality contributes nuggets of their own forms of justice, so very cleverly intertwined into each plot segment.

Tonight's show evolved around a drive-by shooting in which a young, poor black boy is victim, and his ghetto life wasn't good enough for the hospital to willingly help save him.  Harry to the rescue as spokesperson for victim's rights, as well as another young black witness whose efforts to save his friend paid off - and who also identified a cop shooter.  Ironically, the cop shooter becomes the organ donor whose liver saves the younger victim's life.  The liver recipient lives; the cop shooter is arrested/served within moments of awakening, still flat on his back after his good deed. 

Ironies surround this show and weave themselves throughout the plot twists.  My favorite part was the use of the song "In the Ghetto" - especially at the end as Harry and her office mates leave the downtown hospital and walk past a gang hanging out across the street from the hospital.  And in the show's final frames, the gang members are clearly no less likely to have been victims themselves of a society that has left them out to dry, given up on their ability to rise above their poverty, and have taken matters into their own hands for survival in an incredibly cruel and unjust world.  I wondered if any of them realized what Harry had just done in the previous 24 hours:  stood up for the original victim, gone after and convinced the hospital to save his life by performing the transplant knowing they would not be paid for saving another gang-banger wannabe by using a body part of yet another older gang member/cop killer. 

This is one of those outstanding shows that makes me think I need to go back to law school.  I wouldn't be in the "Legally Blonde" category of smart sistahs who pursue passions - but I'd like to think I could be just as successful as Harry.  I certainly look the part, anyway.