Nerdy Lawyer Rant (1 of 4)

I apologize in advance. If you're not interested in an extremely nerdy lawyer rant, just move along. Nothing to see here.

Yeah, so, I watched an episode of "Century City," the other night. The lawyers-in-the-not-so-distant-future show. Last night's episode was a sort of "L.A. Law" meets "Strange Days" type of thing. I was curious enough to give it a shot.

Here's the thing. Do they HAVE a freakin' legal consultant? (Would they like one? Make me an offer.) Seriously. I realize that this is TV, so they get a little leeway. And it's supposed to happen in the future, so they get a little more leeway. But this is just WRONG.

Last night's main plot was a case about a woman who got, er, cyber-raped. See, this jerk spikes the victim's boyfriend's drink with some sort of nanotechnology (I missed that bit -- I was in the bathroom) which enabled the jerk to -- from a distance -- have a virtual reality experience of whatever the boyfriend experienced. Which, in the case, included sex with the victim. Now, victim and boyfriend are blissfully unaware of the whole thing until the next morning when jerk goes to victim's office and gives her some flowers to thank her for such a wonderful experience, and ends up recounting to her the intimate details of her... intimacy. She is, understandably, freaked.

All right. So, the DA won't prosecute the jerk for rape because of the minor detail of the fact that he was 20 miles away at the time. Victim comes to Our Heroes to bring a civil suit.

Our Heroes now have what passes for a legal discussion in "Century City." I paraphrase:
Sympathetic Hero Lawyer: We gotta sue this guy.
Less Sympathetic Hero Lawyer: For what? Maybe you've got invasion of privacy, or trespass.
Sympathetic Hero Lawyer: Not good enough. We've got to defend our client's honor, make legal precedent, and put on exciting television. We must sue this guy for rape.

And so they do.