Sumith Prasad
In Netflix’s cop movie ‘Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F,’ Axel Foley’s daughter, Jane Saunders, is a criminal defense attorney who works for the Beverly Hills-based law firm McGregor & Peterman. She volunteers to work for Sam Enriquez when he gets arrested for murdering a police officer. When Axel arrives in the Californian city from Detroit to unravel the mystery behind the case, Jane’s office becomes the group’s headquarters. Her commitment to her profession is evident in her position at the law firm. Although there are several high-profile attorneys and their firms based in Southern California, it is impossible to find McGregor & Peterman among them!
McGregor & Peterman: A Fictional Law Firm
McGregor & Peterman is a fictitious law firm that doesn’t have a real-life counterpart. Even though there are law firms such as McGregor Law Corp in California and Henry McGregor Law Firm in multiple North American cities, none of these real-life establishments are related to the one in the movie. Will Beall, Tom Gormican, and Kevin Etten conceived McGregor & Peterman to form a backstory for Jane, a newly introduced character as far as the film series is concerned. Jane’s existence as a criminal defense attorney is a significant part of the action comedy’s narrative.
Axel abandoned Jane when the latter was just a child. As a committed police officer, all the former cared for was his job. He didn’t realize that he was a father who needed to prioritize his daughter’s well-being at all. When he disappeared from Beverly Hills and ended up in Detroit, Jane started to hate not only the person who abandoned her but also his job that made him do it. That is one of the reasons why she chose to become a criminal defense attorney. She wanted to exact her vengeance on policework by battling against cops and prosecutors in courts.
The buddy cop movie establishes Jane’s efforts to turn against the police system through her profession. As a lawyer, she needs an address, or in other words, a law firm, specifically to present her as a reputed criminal defense attorney. This is the foundation of the creation of McGregor & Peterman. Rather than real law firms, Jane’s character arc influenced the creation of the law firm the most. By introducing her as a lawyer working for McGregor & Peterman, the narrative places her as the opposite of her father, raising stakes as far as the two main characters are concerned.
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