Reese Witherspoon Mistaken for Real Lawyer During Jury Duty Thanks to 'Legally Blonde'

"I was like, ‘Y’all, this is really upsetting. I definitely did not go to law school, I didn’t finish college,’” she admitted.

Reese Witherspoon once found herself in an unexpected position while serving jury duty—all because of her iconic role as Elle Woods in Legally Blonde.

During a recent appearance on The Graham Norton Show, Witherspoon recalled how her fellow jurors mistakenly believed she had an actual law degree, leading them to unanimously select her as the jury foreperson.

"Listen, I did not want to do jury duty," Witherspoon confessed. "But I remember... it was probably seven years after Legally Blonde, I got called for jury duty in Beverly Hills. I thought, ‘Surely they’re not gonna pick me.’"

To her surprise, she was chosen for a trial that lasted nearly two weeks.

"It was a dog bite case," she explained. "And at the end of it, when it came time for deliberation, they said, ‘OK, well somebody in this group has to be the foreman.’ And they all unanimously pointed at me."

Confused, she asked why she had been chosen, only to receive an amusing response.

"They were like, ‘You went to law school.’ I was like, ‘Y’all, this is really upsetting. I definitely did not go to law school, I didn’t finish college.’”

Despite clarifying that she had only played a lawyer in the beloved 2001 comedy, Witherspoon still ended up leading the deliberation process.

"I started realizing—people don’t know much about the law," she joked.

Witherspoon rose to fame portraying Elle Woods, a sorority girl-turned-Harvard Law student, in Legally Blonde and its 2003 sequel, Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde. Talks of a third installment have circulated for years, though no official release date has been announced.

However, fans won’t have to wait much longer to revisit Elle’s world. In May 2024, Witherspoon confirmed that a Legally Blonde prequel series is in development for Amazon Prime Video.

"Before she became the most famous Gemini vegetarian to graduate from Harvard Law, she was just a regular ‘90s high school girl. And all of you are going to get to know her next year on @primevideo ✨ I’M SO EXCITED!" she wrote in an Instagram post.

The highly anticipated series is expected to premiere later this year.