History Main / SimpleCountryLawyer

->''Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I'm just a caveman. I fell on some ice and later got thawed out by some of your scientists. Your world frightens and confuses me! Sometimes the honking horns of your traffic make me want to get out of my BMW.. and run off into the hills, or wherever.. Sometimes when I get a message on my fax machine, I wonder: "Did little demons get inside and type it?" I don't know! My primitive mind can't grasp these concepts. But there is one thing I do know - when a man like my client slips and falls on a sidewalk in front of a public library, then he is entitled to no less than two million in compensatory damages, and two million in punitive damages. Thank you.''

* The UrExample is the film ''AnatomyOfAMurder'', in which JimmyStewart plays Paul Biegler, a lawyer from the fairly backwoods Upper Peninsula of Michigan, defending a man in a murder trial. Along with the local D.A., an Assistant Attorney General from the state capitol of Lansing has been brought in to prosecute, and Biegler gets a fair amount of mileage out of displaying himself as David facing off against the massive Goliath of the state government, culminating in:

* DustinHoffman plays the Simple Country DA in ''RunawayJury'', going against the jury-rigger played by Gene Hackman.

** A bit of a subversion, as the "Simple Country Lawyer" has more education than the Big City Lawyer (Vinny).

** ...but not as much as one-shot character Oldman Waterfall, who makes the above chicken look like a regular city slicker in comparison. Despite this, he was wildly Libertarian. He also argued for the validity of bisexual polygamist marriage. (YAAAAAAAAYYYYY)

* Dustin Hoffman plays the Simple Country DA in ''RunawayJury'', going against the jury-rigger played by Gene Hackman.

* Surprisingly, the great [[{{AncientRome}} Roman]] orator, lawyer and politician Cicero fills this trope quite well. Whereas most of the senators, magistrates and lawyers in AncientRome were more or less [[{{Nepotism}} patrician]] (not necessarily [[{{ImpoverishedPatrician}} with money]] though), Cicero was an ''eques'' (well-off, but hardly rich) and from Arpinium--a town in southern Latium which had been conquered, assimilated, and granted (plebeian) citizenship by the Romans over the course of the 200 years before Cicero's birth. He played on this fact both implicitly and explicitly in many of his major speeches appealing to the NouveauRiche, such as in the ''In Verrem'' speeches. This makes this trope OlderThanFeudalism.

* Surprisingly, the great [[{{AncientRome}} Roman]] orator, lawyer and politician Cicero fills this trope quite well. Whereas most of the senators, magistrates and lawyers in AncientRome were more or less [[{{Nepotism}} patrician]] (not necessarily [[{{ImpoverishedPatrician}} with money]] though), Cicero came from ''Cisalpine Gaul'' (north of Italy) and was an ''eques'' (of the middle class)). He played on this fact both implicitly and explicitly in many of his major speeches appealing to the NouveauRiche, such as in the ''In Verrem'' speeches. This makes this trope OlderThanFeudalism.

* Dustin Hoffman plays the Simple Country DA in RunawayJury, going against the jury-rigger played by Gene Hackman.
* This was the entire premise of the series {{Matlock}}.

* Keanu Reeves in ''DevilsAdvocate''.

* Jim Trotter III from ''My Cousin Vinny''.

* Surprisingly, the great [[{{AncientRome}} Roman]] orator, lawyer and politician Cicero fills this trope quite well. Whereas most of the senators, magistrates and lawyers in AncientRome were more or less [[{{Nepotism}} patrician]] (not necessarily [[{{ImpoverishedPatrician}} with money]] though), Cicero came from ''Cisalpine Gaul'' (north of Italy) and was an ''eques'' (of the middle class)). He played on this fact both implicitly and explicitly in many of his major speeches appealing to the NouveauRiche, such as in the ''In Verrem'' speeches. This makes this trope OlderThanFeudalism.

* In ''ToKillAMockingbird'', Atticus Finch was a well-educated man who abhorred the opinions of his neighbours, but incompetent parodies make him into a SimpleCountryLawyer.
** If they're not an Atticus Finch parody, they're a direct takeoff of ''{{Matlock}}''.

'''Ned:''' [sighs] I suppose if you must know, I'm... well, I... I'm 60.

* Jim Trotter III from ''My Cousin Vinny''.
** A bit of a subversion, as the "Simple Country Lawyer" has more education than the Big City Lawyer (Vinny).
* Dustin Hoffman plays the Simple Country DA in RunawayJury, going against the jury-rigger played by Gene Hackman.

* Keanu Reeves in ''DevilsAdvocate''.

* Cirroc, TheUnfrozenCavemanLawyer, was a recurring character played by Phil Hartman on ''SaturdayNightLive''.

* Surprisingly, the great [[{{AncientRome}} Roman]] orator, lawyer and politician Cicero fills this trope quite well. Whereas most of the senators, magistrates and lawyers in AncientRome were more or less [[{{Nepotism}} patrician]] (not necessarily [[{{ImpoverishedPatrician}} with money]] though), Cicero came from ''Cisalpine Gaul'' (north of Italy) and was an ''eques'' (of the middle class)). He played on this fact both implicitly and explicitly in many of his major speeches appealing to the NouveauRiche, such as in the ''In Verrem'' speeches.

* The UrExample is the film ''Anatomy of a Murder'', in which Jimmy Stewart plays Paul Biegler, a lawyer from the fairly backwoods Upper Peninsula of Michigan, defending a man in a murder trial. Along with the local D.A., an Assistant Attorney General from the state capitol of Lansing has been brought in to prosecute, and Biegler gets a fair amount of mileage out of displaying himself as David facing off against the massive Goliath of the state government, culminating in:

* ''MysteryScienceTheater3000'' - The host segments of episode 815 (''AgentFor HARM'') have Mike being put on trial for [[MikeNelsonDestroyerOfWorlds inadvertantly destroying several planets]]. His defense attorney is Professor Bobo, who evokes the trope down to the white suit and Southern drawl.

* ''MysteryScienceTheater3000'' - The host segments of episode 815 (''Agent for H.A.R.M.'') have Mike being put on trial for [[MikeNelsonDestroyerOfWorlds inadvertantly destroying several planets]]. His defense attorney is Professor Bobo, who evokes the trope down to the white suit and Southern drawl.

* ''TheVentureBrothers''' Tiny Attorney has lines like "I may just be a growth on the stomach of an inbred simpleton, but..."

*** And he's not very good either. At one point he is see in prison "awaitin' trial for that there ''incompetence.''"