I keep stumbling across this movie deep into it. What’s with the bit where Peschi has to win by 3:00 or the judge will find out something about his identity that will get Peschi in trouble? I’ve seen the bit where Peschi gives the judge a second name that’s one letter off a name the judge asks him about, and the bits at the end where the judge tells him what a damn fine lawyer he is and where Tomei says something about having a friend in the clerk’s office fax something but what’s the start of the sequence?
Vinnie claimed to have lots of trial experience when in fact, he’d never been inside a courtroom before (at least not as a lawyer). The judge was calling his bluff.
Actually, it’s more serious than that.
Lawyers from out of state don’t automatically have the right to appear in court. They have to either (i) become a member of the state’s bar or (ii) petition for admission pro hac vice – essentially, admission for one particular case. Unless the lawyer is going to be appearing in the foriegn court frequently, the latter is the option used.
Here is the process for pro hac vice admission to the Alabama courts (where My Cousin Vinny takes place, IIRC). An out of state attorney must (i) associate with local counsel, (ii) file an application with the court plus $100 filing fee (neither step is shown in the movie; presumably, Pesci associates with the public defender). Then the court will rule on whether he is admitted; the ruling is discretionary, meaning the court doesn’t have to let you in if it doesn’t want to.
But more to the point for our purposes, an attorney must be in good standing in his home state to be admitted pro hac vice. I think Pesci’s character’s standing with the New York bar was questionable – either he hadn’t passed the bar, or for whatever reason his license was not in good standing. So he used the name of another attorney, one who was in good standing (and had a good reputation to boot), in seeking admission to represent his clients.
The 3:00 deadline was when the judge was supposed to have gotten confirmation of Pesci’s good standing in New York. The reason Pesci was trying to beat that deadline is because, if his deception had been discovered, he would have been caught committing a crime: the unauthorized practice of law. He also would have been guilty of fraud on the court, which would trigger criminal contempt charges at the very least. Pesci was literally trying to stay one step ahead of the cops (though thanks to Marisa Tomei, he didn’t have to).
Vinnie had passed the bar, but he had not yet actually had a client before. The question was not if he was in good standing in NY or had a license to practice, but whether he had good enough credentials to be allowed to practice in Alabama.
Question: Strictly speaking, if the judge found out the truth even after Pesci and Tomei left town, couldn’t he have been charged with deception and a whole bunch of other things?
Well gosh, considering who the chief justice of their supreme court is, who doesn’t have good enough credentials to practice in Alabama?
So, was Peschi operating in court under the name of another attorney? I seem to remember his being referred to in court by his own character’s name. What was the set-up dialog that established this little charade?
It’s been years since I saw the movie but didn’t the judge find out at the end, but just sort of ignored it with a ‘it was fun, it’s all over now’ smirk on his face. I may be waaaay off base here. Like I said, it’s been years since I’ve seen it.
IIRC, at first he used his own name. Then the judge got a message that the court had no record of the accomplishments he claimed. So he then said, oh, no, the name you’re searching for info on is not the one I use in court, I use the name “Jerry Gallo.” The real Gallo being a well-known lawyer. Then, it turns out the real Gallo just died. So then he tells the judge, no I didn’t say “Gallo,” I said “Callo.” The judge tries to call the court but it’s lunchtime and he can’t reach anyone. Thus the reprieve until 3:00 when he’ll get the info. While Vinnie is struggling to win the case before 3 pm, Mona Lisa calls his friend back in NY and convinces them to back up Vinnie’s statements, which they do.
The plot hole I saw was that at no time did Vinnie tell Mona Lisa about the “Callo” story. But perhaps that happened off-camera.
I’d just like to point out that there are two My Cousin Vinnie threads on the front page right now. How odd.
Vinny told Mona Lisa that he told the judge that he was Jerry Gallo, that’s when she pointed out to him that Gallo’s name had been all over the papers right before they left New York because he had died. Presumably, he told her at some point that he’d made something else up.
Of course, Mona Lisa didn’t need to know that. It would be easy to presume that Vinny said something because he wasn’t thrown in jail or forced off of the case or running for his life to get out of the jurisdiction before charges were brought against him. And she wouldn’t need to tell Judge Malloy’s clerk back in New York what name Vinny gave the judge in Alabama, because certainly there was only that one request for information sitting on Judge Malloy’s clerk’s fax machine. (Judge Malloy was Vinny’s mentor.) All she’d need to say is “Hey, this is Mona Lisa, you know that fax from Alabama? It’s about Vinny. He’s trying to be admitted pro hac vice down here to defend his cousin, and well, you know how it works. Can you just back him up, tell the judge that he’s okay, whatever it is the judge asks?”
And that’s, presumably, what happened.
I’m completely freaked out that I’ve seen this movie enough times to attempt to rationally explain subplot points. Oy.
MLS:
My understanding was not that he’d never had a paying client, but that he never had any courtroom experience - all his prior work was representing people in insurance matters, and he’d always manage to get a satisfactory settlement before anything even went near a court.
Tea Elle,
Yeah, that sounds about right. Logical.
cmkeller,
I’m sure you’re right that he had no courtroom experience. Heck, he obviously never watched “LA Law,” either. Whether he’d done any other work or not, I don’t honestly remember. If you do, then I’ll take your word for it. But I’ll have to pay close attention to that part the next time it’s on.
In the jailhouse consultation, Vinnie mentions that after passing the bar (on the sixth try) he was practicing personal injury law, during which time he had never had an actual trial.
I still can’t buy TeaElle’s explanation. Look at the timeline:
Vinny and Lisa get into a fight at the diner. All he has told her is that the judge found out that Gallo is dead. She storms out.
Vinny returns to the courtroom without Lisa, has his epiphany, and goes to find her. She is at the telephone, and still VERY MAD at him.
He drags her into the courtroom and forces her to see what he saw in the photo. They make up, the case is dismissed, she immediately runs to get the car, and they leave.
In the car, she tells him that she asked the clerk to fax the judge about the illustrious career of “Jerry Callo,” mentioning him by name.
Now maybe – MAYBE – she could have happened to dope out that there was another request for information, and maybe the clerk happened to mention that “yes, we have a fax here from Alabama about Jerry Callo,” and that’s how she got the name. It seems very implausible, but faintly possible. But why oh why, and most important WHEN, would she have made this call to help him? Yes she was on the phone when Vinny dragged her back into the courtroom, but she was still PISSED at him. I don’t think she would have done a thing to help him at that point.
I still consider this a huge plot hole in an otherwise hilarious movie.
I just happened to watch part of this yesterday. She called his friend the Judge in New York, who faxed down verification that he was a recognized attorney.
Go over to the Pontiac-Buick thread. It’s more interesting.
Don’t forget, she wasn’t just helping HIM - she was also making sure that two innocent kids didn’t ride Old Sparky to the great borough in the sky because they had incompetent representation. Despite how pissed off she was at Vinnie, she wouldn’t torpedo Billy and Stan just to get back at him.
Totally unrelated side note: I never noticed this before, but the actor who played the sheriff also played “D-Day” in Animal House. I thought his whereabouts were unknown!