The Lincoln Lawyer
“He knows how to work the system. This time, the system may be working him.”
Director
Brad Furman
Release
18 March 2011
Runtime
118 Minutes
Certificate
15
Synopsis
Mickey Haller doesn't operate from an expensive downtown office. His Lincoln Town Car is his office. Driving around Los Angeles while juggling clients and court appearances, Mickey has developed a reputation as the lawyer to call when somebody needs a defence attorney who understands exactly how the system works. Then he's offered Louis Roulet. Roulet comes from money and is accused of assaulting a woman in her home. He claims innocence. For Mickey, it looks like the rare combination of a potentially innocent client and a very substantial fee. But the evidence begins bothering him. Working with investigator Frank Levin, Mickey starts examining Roulet's story more closely. What he discovers transforms the case. Details begin connecting Roulet to another crime — and to one of Mickey's former clients, a man who went to prison despite repeatedly insisting that he was innocent. Suddenly Mickey faces a nightmare created by the very rules he's spent his career exploiting. He believes he knows what Roulet has done. But attorney-client privilege restricts what he can reveal. Mickey must find another way. He must use his knowledge of the law not simply to defend a client, but to correct a mistake from his own past without becoming Roulet's next victim.
The Movie Trailer
The Lincoln Lawyer stars Matthew McConaughey as Mickey Haller, a Los Angeles defence attorney who has built a career representing clients from the back seat of his Lincoln Town Car.
Mickey knows the criminal justice system inside out.
He knows the prosecutors.
He knows the cops.
And most importantly, he knows how to find the weaknesses that can turn a seemingly hopeless case in his client's favour.
Then he is hired to defend wealthy young businessman Louis Roulet.
Roulet is accused of brutally attacking a woman but insists he has been framed, and the case initially looks like exactly the kind of lucrative opportunity Mickey has been waiting for.
But as Mickey begins investigating, inconsistencies emerge.
What looked like an easy payday connects to something much darker — including a previous case Mickey thought he'd left behind.
For the first time, the lawyer who has spent his career manipulating the system may be trapped inside it himself.
THE BACK SEAT
Mickey Haller Runs His Law Firm From a Lincoln
Mickey Haller doesn't need a conventional office.
His business happens while Los Angeles passes outside the window.
The Lincoln isn't merely transportation. It's where Mickey takes calls, studies cases, negotiates deals and moves between the different corners of the city's criminal justice system.
It immediately tells us what kind of lawyer he is.
Mobile.
Connected.
Always working.
And comfortable operating in the space between what the law says and what he can persuade somebody to believe.
THE CLIENT
Louis Roulet Looks Like Mickey's Perfect Case
Louis Roulet seems like the client every defence attorney wants.
He's wealthy.
He can afford Mickey's fees.
And he insists he's innocent.
But the more Mickey investigates, the less comfortable the case becomes.
Small details refuse to fit.
Then those details start to resemble another case from Mickey's past.
The possibility that Mickey once helped send an innocent man to prison changes everything.
Winning is no longer enough.
He needs to discover what Roulet really did — and somehow make the legal system see it too.
THE SYSTEM
The Law Becomes Mickey's Greatest Weapon and His Biggest Trap
Mickey has spent years learning how to use rules to his advantage.
Now those same rules protect the person he increasingly believes is guilty.
Attorney-client privilege means knowing the truth isn't the same as being able to reveal it.
That turns The Lincoln Lawyer into something more interesting than a straightforward courtroom thriller.
Mickey can't simply expose Roulet.
He has to manoeuvre him.
Every piece of information matters. Every legal decision creates another possibility.
The man who has made his living finding loopholes finally needs one for a reason considerably more important than winning a case.