By: Bill Myers

May 10, 2004, Chicago Daily Law Bulletin

Hoping to duplicate the success of the television show "The Apprentice," the Fox network has turned to lawyers for help.

Rocket Science Laboratories, the production company behind such Fox shows as "Temptation Island," "Joe Millionaire" and "My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiance," has already begun casting for an as-yet-unnamed show that will have newly minted attorneys competing for a job.

"People are fascinated by what lawyers do and I think people are fascinated by what people do in real environments. No one really goes head-to-head like lawyers," said Tyler Ramsey, Rocket Science Laboratories' supervising casting producer.

"We just felt that it was absolutely the perfect combination," Ramsey added.

Rocket Science has hired casting directors across the country -- including Chicago -- to recruit young lawyers for the program.

Casting directors have also been distributing fliers on law school campuses around town and have set up a telephone hotline to recruit new lawyers.

Most of the specifics of the show are either still being worked out or are being kept "on the down low," Ramsey said.

The show's working title is "The Partner" and it was designed along the lines of the NBC hit "The Apprentice," in which young professionals vie for a job with Donald Trump. In the Fox version of things, young lawyers will live together and compete in "situations," with candidates being weeded out weekly until only one is left.

The winner of the show will be the recipient of "a major career opportunity" -- which is also being kept secret, Ramsey said.

A report published early last month said that producers planned to break the contestants into two teams, one with lawyers from Ivy League schools and the other staffed by attorneys from "less prestigious" schools.

Producers are in negotiations with prominent national attorneys to act as a judge on the new show, reports stated.

Although it wasn't clear whether contestants will be eliminated via a catch-phrase -- a la Trump's "You're fired" -- reports are that Rocket Science Laboratories was scrambling to trademark such phrases as "You're disbarred."

Reports also have it that contestants would compete in mock trial competitions, but Ramsey said that was still up in the air.

"We don't want to tie ourselves into a particular format," he said.

Despite so-called reality TV's reputation for the lowbrow -- "the democrat's pornography" in the words of one critic -- and despite Fox' reputation as the lowbrow network par excellence, the new show will treat lawyers and the law with respect, Ramsey said.

"I think the main thing that's exciting for young lawyers is that there really are not many opportunities where someone is able to graduate from law school, take the bar, find out they've passed the bar and then be thrown right into the middle of it. They'll be able to show the whole country their skills," he said.

Asked whether the appeal of such shows lies in humiliating unpopular contestants, Ramsey said that humiliation was a risk taken by every professional -- on or off the air.

"I think that no matter where they go they have a potential to humiliate themselves," he said. "We think that we're giving participants a chance to shine."

Chicago-area lawyers and legal experts have already given mixed reviews to the planned show.

"My first reaction to a reality show about lawyers is that they'd better have good editing," said Harold J. Krent, dean of Chicago-Kent College of Law. "There's nothing exciting about waiting for a motion call or sitting in the tombs of a library, writing memo after memo."

Krent said that he had no objection, per se, to the proposed show. In fact, it could drive up interest in the law schools of compelling contestants and help even the show's losers, Krent said.

"My understanding is that some of the individuals who are also-rans on some of the other reality shows nonetheless get enough national attention and can jump-start their careers," he said.

However, Krent added: "I wouldn't be able to handle the loss of privacy."

Eileen M. Willenborg, a lawyer and the executive director of the Chicago joint office of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists and the Screen Actors Guild, took a dimmer view.

Such programs are not covered by union contracts, so the contestants can't claim any benefits and see little for their efforts, Willenborg said.

"The companies are making scads of money and none of the players are sharing in those profits," she said.

Brian Uzzi, an associate professor at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management who tracks trends in the practice of law, said that even though law tends to be more conservative than other professions, it would not necessarily damage a young lawyer's career by appearing on a reality show.

"I could imagine in certain circumstances some conventional or conservative minded partners could say do we really want somebody who hasn't had an unbending commitment to learning the laws," he said.

"Most firms think of hiring in terms of portfolio, to diversify the experiences and expertise. If you're going to hire five and six people, are you only going to hire people from Harvard and those people who stayed in Friday and Saturday night to study? Probably not. It's the mix that enables you to problem-solve and be creative.

"The person who does the reality show would be the person who would be categorized as the wild card," Uzzi added.

For all of that, Uzzi said that it is intriguing that Hollywood thinks it can expand the market for "reality shows" by focusing on a narrower field.

"They've got to put a lot of resources up to mount something like this. Why do they think that it's going to sell to the public? It's probably going to tap into some stereotype people have about attorneys, that they're clever, shrewd, manipulative, and willing to duke it out in their own narrow interests," Uzzi said.

This begs the question, Uzzi said: "What I would ask is, how might this affect the public's view of the law profession? Is this going to increase the stereotyping, and particularly the negative stereotype?

"The groundwork is laid for this show to perhaps reinforce negative stereotypes about lawyers, rather than negate them. That might have some kind of repercussions if the show really takes off. People might start to think that law suffers even more from the temptation to act in self-interested ways and to throw altruism out the window," Uzzi said.

To qualify as a contestant on the new show, a lawyer must have passed the bar and received official notification between May 2003 and May of this year. Additionally, a candidate cannot hold a full-time job at a law firm.

Anyone interested in auditioning for the show can call (866) 633-2408, or send an e-mail message to Castingchicago@aol.com.