This articleneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "The Paper Chase" TV series – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(September 2019) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

The Paper Chase
Title screen
Genre	Drama
Based on	The Paper Chase byJohn Jay Osborn Jr.
Developed by	James Bridges
Starring	John Houseman James Stephens Tom Fitzsimmons Robert Ginty James Keane Jonathan Segal Francine Tacker Deka Beaudine Jane Kaczmarek Michael Tucci
Composers	Stephen Seretan (1.0, 1.1, 1.5, 1.7, 1.8, 1.15, 1.16, 1.17, 1.18, 1.19, 1.20) Charles Fox (1.2, 1.3) Thomas Newman (1.21) Richard Shores (1.4, 1.6, 1.7, 1.9, 1.10, 1.11, 1.12)
Country of origin	United States
Original language	English
No. of seasons	4
No. of episodes	59(list of episodes)
Production
Executive producers	Lynn Roth Robert C. Thompson
Producers	Albert Aley Robert Lewin Ernest A. Losso
Cinematography	Gene A. Talvin
Editors	Axel Hubert Sr. Rod Stephens
Running time	60 minutes
Production company	20th Century Fox Television
Original release
Network	CBS
Release	September 9, 1978 (1978-09-09) – April 24, 1979 (1979-04-24)
Network	Showtime
Release	April 15, 1983 (1983-04-15) – August 9, 1986 (1986-08-09)

The Paper Chase is a 1978 Americandrama television series based on the 1971novel of the same title byJohn Jay Osborn Jr., and a1973 film adaptation. It follows the lives of law student James T. Hart and his classmates at an unnamed law school, modeled onHarvard Law School.

James T. Hart is a law student from ruralMinnesota who enters the intensely competitive environment of a prestigious law school specifically to study with Professor Charles W. Kingsfield, the world's leading authority oncontract law. Kingsfield inspires both awe and fear in his students in his unremitting determination to prepare them for the practice of law.

To cope with the heavy workload, Hart joins a study group organized by Franklin Ford III. Ford is under immense pressure to succeed. His family has produced an unbroken string of outstanding lawyers going back generations, culminating in his demanding father, the senior partner in a very prestigious Wall Street law firm. The study group includes smooth woman-chaser Thomas Craig Anderson, slob Willis Bell, idealistic activist Elizabeth Logan, and struggling Jonathan Brooks, who is married to Asheley. Brooks drops out after he voluntarily confesses to cheating.

Hart works part-time at Ernie's Tavern to help pay his way through school. In the pilot, a waitress (Marilu Henner) shows him the ropes.

There was a four-year hiatus between the end of the first season and the start of the second.

Hart survives the first year with flying colors and joins the staff of the student-publishedLaw Review (an honor reserved for the top students), under the leadership of Gerald Golden. He becomes romantically involved with first-year law student Connie Lehman, only to lose her when she wins aRhodes Scholarship and goes toOxford University. Later, he repeatedly clashes withLaw Review rival Rita Harriman, herself a brilliant student, though he admits to Ford that he is perversely attracted to her.

Hart is now the president of theLaw Review. The new students include Ford's younger brother Tom and former housewife Rose Samuels. The Ford brothers have to come to terms with theirsibling rivalry. Rose deals with a surprise divorce and being so much older than her classmates.

This season consists of only six episodes, including a two-part finale in which Hart has to decide between taking a federal court clerkship or a position in a small private firm with idealistic goals after graduation. His decision is further complicated when he is invited to apply for a newly vacant faculty position at the school, an option opposed by Kingsfield, who believes he lacks the necessary experience. Hart, the top student in the graduating class, gives thecommencement speech, bringing the series to a close.

Ordered by number of credited episodes; only actors with eight or more episodes are listed.

TheCBS television network aired the series in the 1978–1979 season.John Houseman reprised his movie role, andJames Stephens played Hart. Despite extensive critical praise, ratings were low and it was cancelled after one year;PBS subsequently rebroadcast all of the episodes. In 1983, cable networkShowtime brought back the show with both Houseman and Stephens, as well as some other members of the original television cast. At the end of the fourth season, Hart finally graduates from law school.

In the first year, the theme song was "The First Years", written byNorman Gimbel andCharles Fox, and performed bySeals and Crofts. In the pilot, the opening used an instrumental version, and the ending used a different vocal version. Starting in the second year, a classical instrumental piece replaced it.

In the first year, the program opens with Professor Kingsfield, in class, saying, "The study of law is something new and unfamiliar to most of you—unlike any other schooling you have ever known before." After the theme song, he continues: "You teach yourselves the law but I train your minds. You come in here with a skull full of mush, and, if you survive, you leave thinking like a lawyer."

The pilot episode had a different opening credits sequence which featured an instrumental version of the theme song, omitted Professor Kingsfield's opening narrative, and introduced the characters through the use of the class seating chart. It also featured a different female character, Linda O'Connor (played by Katharine Dunfee Clarke).^{[citation needed]}

The show won theCableACE Award for Best Dramatic Series in 1985 and 1987.

Shout! Factory has released the four seasons on DVD in Region 1.^[1]

In the late 1980s,The Family Channel rebroadcast the entire series in a late-night time slot, at midnightEastern Time. The series was later seen in the early 1990s onA&E, and in the early 2000s onGoodLife Television.

The series aired in the UK onBBC Two, in Venezuela (Alma Mater) and Colombia. The series aired onCBC TV 8 inBarbados in the 1980s.The series aired in South Africa, around the early 80's. It was dubbed into Afrikaans, and titled "Beste Professor", which, in English, means "Dear Professor".

Wikiquote has quotations related toThe Paper Chase (TV series).

• The Paper Chase atIMDb

• 1978 American television series debuts
• 1970s American legal drama television series
• 1980s American legal drama television series
• 1986 American television series endings
• 1970s American college television series
• CBS legal dramas
• American English-language television shows
• PBS original programming
• Showtime (TV network) television dramas
• Live action television shows based on films
• Television shows based on American novels
• Television series by 20th Century Fox Television
• American television series revived after cancellation
• Television shows set in Massachusetts
• Universities and colleges in art
• 1980s American college television series

• Webarchive template wayback links
• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Articles needing additional references from September 2019
• All articles needing additional references
• Use mdy dates from March 2025
• All articles with unsourced statements
• Articles with unsourced statements from June 2022