Frank Galvin is a miserable and unhappy attorney in The Verdict. Played by Paul Newman, his personal life and his professional life have fallen apart. But in a beautiful film directed by Sidney Lumet and written by David Mamet, Galvin finds redemption in, of all things, a medical malpractice case.

Galvin is tempted to take a large settlement but rejects it in pursuit of the chance to do something right. The case goes to trial, where the evidence is on Galvin's side, but, as with all trials, things never go smoothly in the courtroom.

Galvin's restoration through the film, culminating before the jury during closing argument, are good enough to make him the Fictional Attorney of the Month.

2016 Fictional Attorneys of the Month

January: Mitch Grinder

February: Troy

March: Herr Huld

April: J.J. Ford

May: Paul Biegler

June: The Blue-Haired Lawyer

July: Mr. Briggs

August: Sally Carrera

September: Abraham Haphazard

October: Jackie Chiles

November: Fred Gailey

2015 Fictional Attorneys of the Month

2014 Fictional Attorneys of the Month

2013 Fictional Attorneys of the Month

After blogging about more than forty fictional attorneys on a monthly basis, I've decided to put FAotM on hiatus indefinitely. It was a delightful effort for many years. But there's a grind to a monthly format, and I've been a bit picky in my selection of lawyers, which dramatically reduces the pool of opportunities to blog and makes next year's efforts fairly daunting. There are, of course, many, many more fictional attorneys out there, and perhaps I'll launch back into the project sometime in the future. But for now, a chapter is closing.