Criminal Lawyer is a 1937 American drama film directed by Christy Cabanne from a screenplay by G. V. Atwater and Thomas Lennon, based on a story by Louis Stevens. The film stars Lee Tracy, Margot Grahame and Eduardo Ciannelli. RKO produced the film and premiered it on January 26, 1937, in New York City, with a national release a few days later on January 29. It was the second time Stevens' story had been used for a film, the first being 1932's State's Attorney, starring John Barrymore and Helen Twelvetrees, directed by George Archainbaud, and also produced and released by RKO.

William Lee Tracy was an American stage, film, and television actor. He is known foremost for his portrayals between the late 1920s and 1940s of fast-talking, wisecracking news reporters, press agents, lawyers, and salesmen. From 1949 to 1954, he was also featured in the weekly radio and television versions of the series Martin Kane: Private Eye, as well as starring as the newspaper columnist Lee Cochran in the 1958–1959 British-American crime drama New York Confidential. Later, in 1964, he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and a Golden Globe for his supporting role in the film The Best Man.