Fairly Legal set visit: Michael Sardo interview (part 5)

Check out our set visit in part 1, our Virginia Williams interview in part 2,
our Michael Trucco interview in part 3, and our advanced review in part 4)

At heart Michael Sardo — former executive producer of Caroline in the City, former Wings writer, and current creator/writer/executive producer of Fairly Legal — is a storyteller. He is the father-like figure gathering the young children around the dinner table to spin stories of his youth, his experiences, and his passions. Through his calmness, his words, and his gestures he captures, hypnotizes, and sedates the attention of even the most vocal critic. Despite his casual New York background — revealed through his intonations and presence — his rhetoric, patience, and posture portray him as a Hollywood player long used to struggles and objections. After watching the advanced preview of Fairly Legal in August 2010 in the upstairs makeshift viewing/conference room of the Vancouver production offices, we, the attending bloggers, sat rapt for half an hour while Michael Sardo wooed us with his words.

As I stated regarding Michael Trucco, no Hollywood figure should run for public office. Michael Sardo, with his deftly-crafted words and tranquil presence, could easily convince me that the universe inverted itself while making the sky black and the sea crimson.

In my advanced preview review of Fairly Legal (then called Facing Kate) I listed several concerns regarding the show’s lack of mediation focus, and the contrast of Kate’s desire to help the less fortunate with her continuing work at a high-powered law firm. Below find the transcript of our exchange. Although I had to excerpt portions, you’ll notice that Sardo, befitting his position, has a way with words.

The first two pages focus on my questions. The third page includes questions from the other assembled writers concerning Battlestar Galactica veteran Michael Trucco.

Actually, if I could start off, I do have a question for you.
What’s your name?

I’m An.
An.

I am from CliqueClack TV – Hi. Nice to meet you.
Nice to meet you too.

So I guess I just had a question about why you decided to choose mediation, because it’s like the bastard stepchild of the legal system.
I guess I don’t think of it that way. I was interested myself in how broken the legal system is, and the whys of it. I think if you have — think about having a friend and something terrible has happened to them…. And they say, “Well, I’m going to court.” Would you really think of saying, “Oh, good, then everything will work out just fine?”

You don’t. You go to find out what the law says, which is very different than what’s right. And I saw in my own life, and the lives of friends, that it was — it’s about this one-size-fits-all law. And you hope that it happens to be on your side; it may or may not be. You know, a guy breaks into your house while you’re on vacation, falls into your pool and dies. You have a problem.

Especially once I had a house with children, and all of a sudden everything is liability, and a problem, and you feel like you’re in this defensive posture and you’re being attacked. But you’re being attacked almost by the laws that you think are supposed to protect you…. And in a way, the law has to be that way, because so many people come through it. So you have to standardize things some way. And what I tried to do in the pilot was to show that without the law that way lies anarchy. You can’t do that. But you do have to reintroduce some aspect of humanity, and of relating to — understanding the situation.

And the reason I brought up being from the Bronx is I just saw — I went to a very good college, and I saw the way that my friends were treated by the law. There was an assumption of guilt that it was just a matter of time before you were going to do something, so we might as well get you off the street now. Whereas if you were a kid from Greenwich, Connecticut, or Short Hills, New Jersey, or Winnetka, Illinois, and the same thing happens it’s, “He’s just like the Senator — his dad. You know, he’s full of piss and vinegar and he’s great.”

You know, the same thing that if you’re a kid from the Bronx it’s, “You know what? You’re a freaking juvenile delinquent. We’re going to just get you into the system now, because if not now you’ll be in there in six months.” And the law actually does treat people very differently…. How do you make those decisions? So a lot of those kinds of cases now are shifting to mediation. And it’s gaining in importance.

And it’s, to me, a much more mature way of dealing with conflict. Because you take two people, put them in a room: “What’s your problem? What’s your problem? Let’s work out a solution.” And I take those two people, put them in court: “Don’t speak. Don’t speak. She’s going to speak for you, he’s going to speak for you. And then this judge — who’s dad or grandpa — will from on-high tell you what the ruling is.” You know, so to me, that’s the bastard stepchild of how laws and society should work. And people addressing each other directly and working it out together … that’s the way that things should work.

Clacked by An Nicholson
on Feb 16, 2011 @ 16:00 EST5EDT