Who’s at Legal Fault in Friday the 13th?

For someone who doesn’t really like horror movies, Cara Fialkoff has made a standout presentation around them. Approached several years ago by New Jersey Institute for Continuing Legal Education to present, Fialkoff was asked if she’d take part in a Halloween-themed CLE.

It was an offer she couldn’t refuse.

“Ever since I can remember, I’ve been an avid lover of Halloween,” she says. “Anyone knows me knows it’s my favorite. So when the opportunity came about, I jumped at it.”

Fialkoff wound up developing a presentation with several other New Jersey attorneys titled “Halloween Legalities—What Horror Movies Can Teach Lawyers.” It examines the genre through a legal lens, asking: What lawsuits could be brought if this happened in real life? Who would be considered negligent? Would there be financial liability?

“When you’re looking at things like Friday the 13th or all the Jason movies from a legal [standpoint], you start to wonder about all the lawsuits that could possibly come about,” Fialkoff says. “Is there an opportunity for a negligence claim against the camp director? Or is there an issue of liability on a mental health facility for letting an individual out of their care when they have a known desire to kill?”

Fialkoff comes by her love of Halloween naturally. When she was a kid, her mother threw a big party every October 31st, and they were visited by more trick-or-treaters than any other house on the block thanks to a massive decorative display.

“My mom is a huge Halloween fanatic,” she says. “It was kind of ingrained in me. … It’s fun now to use that love of Halloween in a more professional setting.”

Over the years, her interest in exploring the legal pitfalls in everyday situations has only grown. Any time she watches a drama-filled TV show with her husband, attorney Michael Fialkoff, they ask the same question: “How would this play out in the real world?”

“To explore how certain situations would play out in a courtroom when they aren’t necessarily law-related has definitely become more enjoyable to me,” she says. “You begin to question, ‘Wait, is there a potential claim here? How would you argue this issue in a motion or in front of a judge?’”

With all that time spent analyzing the potential legal pitfalls in ’80s slasher films, it comes as a bit of a surprise to find out that Fialkoff is in fact not a big fan of the genre.

“I cannot sit through [them],” she says. “I get way too scared. I have to close my eyes during most horror movies. … I think these short clips that we show in the CLE are truly all that I can handle. I love Halloween, but I’m not a scary-movie fan.”

Last year, Fialkoff spread the Halloween cheer beyond her presentation —she and her husband celebrated the holiday with their son, William, who was born in August. “He probably had more costumes than any other baby,” she says. 

As for the Halloween CLE presentation, she plans to keep it going. “It blends my love of Halloween with law,” she says, “which I can’t complain about.”