Atticus Finch literary journals". Alice Petry remarked, "Atticus has become something of a folk hero in legal circles and is treated almost as if he were an actual person". Examples of Atticus Finch's impact on the legal profession are plentiful. Richard Matsch, the federal judge who presided over the Timothy McVeigh trial, counts Atticus as a major judicial influence. One law professor at the University of Notre Dame stated that the most influential textbook from which he taught was "To Kill a Mockingbird", and an article in the "Michigan Law Review" asserts, "No real-life lawyer has done more for the self-image or
Ellen Ripley Film Institute ranked her as the eighth best hero in American film history in their list of the 100 greatest heroes and villains, the second highest ranked female character after Clarice Starling. In 2009, "Entertainment Weekly" ranked Ripley fifth on their list of "The 20 All Time Coolest Heroes in Pop Culture", calling her "one of the first female movie characters who isn't defined by the men around her, or by her relationship to them". The same year, she was ranked #9 on "Empire" magazine's compilation of "The 100 Greatest Movie Characters" in 2008 and #5 in 2015, being the