Jot down every negative lawyer stereotype you can think of: greedy, arrogant, double-talking, backstabbing. Keep going, there's more.
Now, cue the twangy theme music to TV's Breaking Bad. Because the list you compiled amounts to a character sketch of Saul Goodman, the show's deliciously devious strip-mall attorney who is getting his own show, Better Call Saul, premiering Feb. 8 and 9 on AMC.
You'd think real lawyers would hate this fictional attorney who represents the legal profession about as well as Genghis Khan represents the field of management.
And yet, plenty of lawyers love Saul.
"It's almost like he's your alter ego," said Jennifer Zedalis, director of trial practice at the University of Florida's Levin College of Law.
"I would categorize Saul as pretty much a dirtbag but a very funny and entertaining one," said attorney Brian Pingor.
Saul "seems like somebody you'd want to sit around and have a beer with,'' Pingor said. "He's definitely that guy."
Retired Hillsborough Chief Judge Manuel Menendez Jr. is a big fan of Saul's.
"He's the most unethical lawyer ever portrayed on TV that I can recall. But despite that, (he's) a likeable character," Menendez said.
Lawyers quote Saul Goodman so much, he's like the evil twin of Oliver Wendell Holmes.
Jay Hebert, a Clearwater criminal defense attorney, shared a favorite Breaking Bad scene:
"You don't want a criminal lawyer,'' Saul tells his drug-dealing clients. "You want a criminal lawyer."
Clearwater criminal defense and DUI attorney Kevin Hayslett mentioned a typical Saul quote, too: "Let's just say I know a guy who knows a guy who knows another guy."
In the real world, Hayslett said, winning a case depends a lot more on facts. Attorneys don't really "know a guy" who can make charges disappear, as Saul suggests.
Still, Hayslett said, "I think everyone wants to believe somehow that you know a guy who knows a guy. And that's partly because Hollywood has created that belief."
Saul strikes a chord not just with lawyers but also with people who may need a lawyer, as Hayslett well knows.
As Breaking Bad ended its five-season run in 2013, Hayslett came up with a marketing idea. He put up billboards on U.S. 19 that said: "Saul's gone … better call Kevin," copying the periodic-table lettering motif used in Breaking Bad.
Not everyone got the joke, but those who did went out of their way to let Hayslett know. "I had people who stopped by my office, who came in the front door and said, 'Listen, I don't have any criminal problems, but can I get your card because I absolutely love the billboard.' "
Hayslett also gave away 600 "Better Call Kevin" T-shirts.
"I've never seen something that evoked this emotional connection to a lawyer," he said.
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Explore all your optionsAccording to the Breaking Bad back story of Saul, played by Bob Odenkirk, he's an Irish guy named Jimmy McGill but changed his name to suggest he is Jewish. He works in a run-down Albuquerque, N.M., strip mall topped with an inflatable Statue of Liberty.
"Oh, man, who's going in there to get some advice?" Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Judge John Schaefer said, chuckling.
"It can't get any slimier, but that's what makes it funny," Hayslett said.
Saul's new show is a prequel to Breaking Bad that will chart his decline to bad attorney archetype.
So why aren't real lawyers seething about their profession's portrayal by a guy who helps his clients launder money, find safe places to cook meth and disappear?
"I think the reason lawyers are not offended by him is the character is so far-fetched he would not be long for our world," Clearwater attorney Hebert said.
Zedalis, the University of Florida law professor, agrees that Saul is so over the top that it's hard to take offense. "In real life he would need to be disbarred, absolutely."
Zedalis said lawyers do practice professional ethics. There is the prosecutor who called her the night before a criminal trial, announcing plans to drop charges against her client. The reason? A key witness had changed his story that morning and the prosecutor wanted to do the right thing.
Still, Zedalis said, "we wouldn't enjoy watching shows that have characters like Saul if there wasn't an element of truth in some of what we saw."
She reflected on once-revered attorney F. Lee Bailey, who represented an international drug smuggler and got into serious trouble over the way he handled his client's stock holdings.
"When I was in law school he was a hero," Zedalis said. "He ended up being disbarred right down the road in Marion County."
Contact Curtis Krueger at ckrueger@tampabay.com or (727) 893-8232. Follow @ckruegertimes.