'The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story' Recap: Getting Defensive

As someone who rarely gets into legal trouble for which I am found innocent, I have a legal question for you: How many lawyers is enough? Most people will tell you that you should have at least one lawyer representing you in a trial, but still others might be more comfortable with two lawyers. Certain films and TV shows might portray upwards of three lawyers working to defend their client, and that’s three times as many lawyers as just having one lawyer. (I’ll check my math later.) So what’s to stop us from keeping the lawyer train rolling and just hiring, four, five, six, heck, a gross of lawyers? If I were to show up to my court date with upwards of seven thousand lawyers in tow, would that help or hurt my chances of being thrown into white collar prison again? A popular phrase is “quality over quantity” but a really good counterpoint would be “the more the merrier.” At least according to the legal strategies on display in “The Dream Team” episode of The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story, it would appear that the only way to get away with murder is to hire ALL THE LAWYERS.

The trial of O.J. Simpson was a lot of things to a lot of people, but one of its cutest aspects was how instructive it was to the layman about how the justice system works, and that its lawyers — not victims or potential killer — ended up being the stars of the show. “The Dream Team” delved wingtip-first into this subject by showing how exactly O.J. came to be represented by such a wild menagerie of powerful, expensive lawyers, and also it laid the groundwork for the controversial legal strategy that would eventually lead to his acquittal. Friends, this episode was riveting. Let’s talk about it!

We began at Chin Chin, a restaurant in a Brentwood strip mall that people used to think was chic. Robert Kardashian was surrounded by four small children who were hungry for food and starving for something else…

Yep, though the trial hadn’t even started, the Kardashian patriarch was already getting recognized by strangers and given the best tables at Chin Chin. And you better believe that Kourtney, Kim, Khloe and Rob noticed.