Defense attorney Vinny Gambini (Joe Pesci) kisses the hand of expert witness Mona Lisa Vito (Marisa Tomei) as Judge Chamberlain Haller (Fred Gwynne) presides during the climactic courtroom testimony scene in “My Cousin Vinny.” (1992 ).  (Courtesy photo)

Georgia Supreme Court Chief Justice Harold Melton shares advice for successful mentoring relationships in the current issue of Georgia Bar Journal.

But it requires watching the movie “My Cousin Vinny”—released 27 years ago this month, one year after Melton graduated from the University of Georgia School of Law.

Chief Justice Harold Melton

It's Melton's favorite legal movie, reveals Michelle West, director of the bar's Transition Into Law Practice Program. She learned that when she asked Melton in an interview to discuss his mentoring experiences. Before he answered, he wanted to know if she had seen it. She had not. So she had to go out and get the prerequisite.

“My Cousin Vinny” is the story of an inexperienced lawyer from Brooklyn, New York, who winds up trying his first case in rural Alabama because his cousin is falsely accused of murder. The movie is a near-slapstick comedy at times but offers serious wisdom about the practice of law.

Many judges have referenced it over the years, including in written opinions.

One of Melton's favorite scenes shows the necessity of mentoring.

Vinny's fiancee, Mona Lisa, proves to be a quicker study on the copy of the Alabama rules of procedure that the judge has given Vinny. She's worried he doesn't know what he's doing and isn't comforted when he says he'll learn as he goes.

Mona Lisa: “Learn as you go?” You didn't learn that in law school?

Vinny: Nah … they teach precedents, interpretations … you're supposed to learn procedure from the firm that hires you or you can go to court and watch.

Mona Lisa: Have you been doing that?

He says no, because he's been working as a mechanic in her father's garage while taking the bar—six times. But he finally passed, six weeks before the murder case crops up.

Melton shared his first glimpse inside the courtroom as an intern and a law clerk for his mentor, then-Cobb County Judge P. Harris Hines. He said Hines mentored him the way a judge mentored Vinny in the movie—seeking him out, encouraging him to go to law school, being truly proud of him and keeping in touch.

The two kept having lunch for 30 years. Melton succeeded Hines as chief justice in September. Hines was there to swear him in and cheer him on.

In his conversation with West, Melton used the movie to illustrate the advice of his mentor to never try to go it alone. Hines liked to tell newly sworn-in lawyers that Frank Sinatra's “I Did it My Way” was “truly a horrible philosophy.”

In the movie, Vinny wins his case—with Mona Lisa's help as an expert witness and all the experience they both have working in her dad's garage. They use her automotive knowledge to prove that tire tracks from the murder scene couldn't have been made by his cousin's car. But he's a little sad because he didn't do it all on his own.

Mona Lisa: So what's your problem?

Vinny: I wanted to win my first case without anybody's help.

Mona Lisa: Well, I guess that plan's moot.

Vinny: Yeah.

Mona Lisa: This could be a sign of things to come; you win your cases—but with “someone else's help.” Right? You win case after case and then afterward, you have to go up to someone and say “Thank you.” [pause] Oh my God—what a … nightmare!

Melton took one last chance to say thank you to his mentor. Two months after Hines retired and Melton was sworn in as chief justice, Hines was killed in a car crash. At the memorial service, Melton recalled, through tears, the mentorship and friendship Hines gave him. It was almost Thanksgiving when the accident occurred. “I promise to say a special thanks,” Melton said, “that he shared that spirit with me and made me a little bit better person. Thank you.”