Scott: Don't forget Alan Trustman who wrote the ORIGINAL "Thomas Crown Affair", "Bullitt", and " They Call Me MISTER Tibbs".
What is it about attorneys, or some attorneys,that have a feeling for the craft?

That's a great question. Maybe it's so much of what they do is deal with conflict and conflict resolution. And they deal with 'characters' in their cases. Maybe it's about dissecting a case and determining the 'story' they feel they need to tell to win the case in oral arguments. Other ideas?

That's part of what I was thinking. The main part was they have to put all their facts, evidence, etc. into a "brief" I believe they call it and then put that into a viable, defend able(whether they are for or against the prosecution)case. I think of it as the case being the story and this process is like the most important part of "winning" the case or the sale of a spec: You've got to KNOW everything about it with no holes.
You have to project EVERY possible question to the logic of what you have presented.
Sounds like a plot outline, back story treatment,beat-sheet, and first draft to me.
Maybe I should go to Harvard Law school?

Scott, I don't understand. Isn't that John Badham's "Drop Zone"? I thought people were looking for "similar, but different", but that concept is merely "similar". What happened to originality? Instead of busting our heads to come up with something 'we've never heard before' like everybody says, should we just take a concept from the 90's or 80's, and rewrite it? Ok, I'm confused now...

@George: You're right re "Drop Zone," a movie, I confess, I didn't see. Here's the plot per an IMDB summary:

"A team of skydiving crooks led by DEA-agent-turned-bad Busey specialize in landing on police roofs and breaking in so their evil computer nerd can steal undercover agents' files and sell them to drug lords. Federal Marshal Snipes lost a brother to this crew and learns skydiving with the help of tough-but-lovable instructor Butler so he can track them down. DIE HARD meets PASSENGER 57 meets CLIFFHANGER."

I'll take this up in a post re similar but different. Perhaps Hwood's sense of 'similar' is changing?