ByVal Hull
Lawyers are the closest thing to wizards we have in our world. They pore through dusty old tomes for hours on end to eventually deliver an incantation surrounded by multiple rituals that will either get you what you want, or change the rules of society itself. It’s no surprise then that media featuring lawyers remains perennially popular.
Back during the early 20th century, at the height of the pulp era and beyond, Erle Stanley Gardner’s Perry Mason stories captivated audiences all over the world. A TV show based on those stories ran for 9 seasons between 1957-1966 and helped build the foundation of what we today know as a courtroom drama. Twelve Angry Men, a story focusing on the lengthy deliberations of a jury, was written in 1957 and then adapted for television, radio, and made into several movies. And to this day it remains one of the most acclaimed and frequently referenced pieces of fiction.
The above basically boils down to the fact that lawyers are cool and we like seeing them in action. But if you like your lawyers to be closer to the 21st century in style, and you’ve already gone through the available footage of the Depp v. Heard trial, we’ve put together a list of some of the best TV series prominently featuring lawyers and their adventures. Some of them focus on the actual courtroom proceedings, others on the investigations required to win the case, but they all give you plenty of entertaining television to watch.
Here’s our list of the best modern lawyer shows:
We will take a close look at each of them in the sections below.
Having started its run back in 1990, Law & Order is stretching our definition of modern a bit. But considering that the show is still going, currently airing its 24th season, and that there’s little in the way of overarching storylines there, you can easily jump into it now and not feel confused. In fact, Law & Order is such an institution, chances are the moment you saw the headline your brain made you hear the iconic “dun, dun” sound from the show’s intro.
The show’s premise is very simple. The episode starts with a crime, and then a pair of detectives has to investigate said crime and find a suitable suspect. The second half of the episode shifts to another duo — that of prosecutors — who now have to prosecute the offenders in court. It’s pure, simple, and in all likelihood, it bored you to tears when you were a kid sick at home on a weekday. As an adult, it’s riveting stuff — the witty one-liners, two mysteries per episode for the price of one (how to catch the killer, and then how to prove they’re guilty), and the timely delivery of sweet, sweet justice. A somewhat more controversial, love-it-or-hate-it feature of the show is how it likes to scour news headlines for episode ideas.
But perhaps the greatest thing about Law & Order for a TV show enthusiast is how much there is of it. The original show got its 24 seasons in 34 years (there was a decade-long hiatus at one point), but then we also have numerous spin-offs, cross-overs with other shows, foreign adaptations, and even video games.
Despite his entirely unserious screen name, Dick Wolf sure knows how to build a franchise. The chief among Law & Order spin-offs is Law & Order: Special Victims Unit that’s been going strong since 1999. The show focuses on particularly heinous crimes and introduces greater continuity to the franchise by giving extended story arcs to its protagonists. So, if the basic Law & Order is a bit too “monster of the week” for you, perhaps SVU will be more to your liking.
When you hear this show’s title — The Good Wife — a particular picture appears in your head. This picture is further reinforced by the show’s basic premise:
Set in Chicago, the series focuses on Alicia Florrick (Margulies), whose husband Peter (Noth), the former Cook County, Illinois State’s Attorney, has been jailed following a notorious political corruption and sex scandal. After having spent the previous 13 years as a stay-at-home mother, Alicia returns to the workforce as a litigator to provide for her two children.
With this description, it’s reasonable to assume that the show offers nothing but endless melodrama with the law acting as a thin backdrop, and give it a pass.
This first impression is very misleading. The Good Wife is easily one of the best lawyer shows ever made. You have a major law firm packed with strong and oftentimes clashing personalities — old-timers entrenched in their ways, hungry newcomers who’ll do anything for a promotion, internal politics of getting on the partner track, the realities of running a law firm as a business — it’s all there.
Then, there are the robust courtroom scenes, where our protagonist Alicia has to re-learn everything she’d forgotten, which works as a great introduction for the viewers, and then become a force to be reckoned with on the Chicago legal scene. The Good Wife does a great job of creating a colorful cast of supporting characters who’ll be acting as Alicia’s allies and rivals in court, and even the judges presiding over their cases all have their unique quirks and personalities.
The Good Wife also does a great job of presenting two sides of every story, so while its individual characters have their convictions, in the end what really matters is the law. The one big blemish on the show stems from the things that happened when the cameras weren’t rolling. Some of the key actors couldn’t stand each other in real life, and this led to some very stilted and awkwardly edited scenes in the later seasons.
Produced by the dynamic duo of Michele and Robert King, and supported by Ridley Scott (yes, the Alien guy) of all people, the show ran for seven seasons. It was then followed by a spin-off The Good Fight, that ran for six seasons and focused on social issues. And now that both of them are over, we have Elsbeth in its second season — a show focusing on Elsbeth Tascioni, one of the more colorful lawyers Alicia crossed paths with. Only Elsbeth isn’t really a lawyer show, and is instead a modern take on Columbo. It’s still a pretty great show and you should check it out.
We weren’t sure about including Better Call Saul on this list. Yes, the titular character is a lawyer. Yes, a lot of the show’s action revolves around law firms and court cases. And yes, it’s a fantastic piece of television.
At the same time, the primary reason to watch Better Call Saul is not its great portrayal of the legal system. It’s the desire to follow the adventures of Jimmy McGill in order to fill the void left by the ending of Breaking Bad, the show to which Better Call Saul is a spin-off.
Better Call Saul takes a more cavalier approach to the law than most other lawyer shows. Its legal puzzles become all about how to circumvent the system without getting caught. It also forces its characters to face the consequences of engaging in such chicanery instead of practicing good clean law.
On top of all the legal stuff, Better Call Saul also features plenty of elements more common to crime shows, with its gangs, cartels, and highly-trained hitmen. But at the end of the day, it’s just a fantastic piece of media. Better Call Saul not only rivals its highly-acclaimed predecessor, some would say it manages to step out of its shadow and surpass it.
Those of you only interested in the lawyer parts of the show should also be pleased to hear that in a cast absolutely packed with stellar performances, the one true standout among the supporting characters is Kim Wexler. Portrayed by Rhea Seehorn, Kim’s legal journey from a by-the-book attorney to someone who skirts the rules of what’s acceptable, and how that affects her career, is a subplot that could have easily been its own show.
David E. Kelley is a TV producer who can rival Dick Wolf himself in his prolific output and overall presence on the small screen. A former attorney himself, Kelley has a fondness for lawyer shows. One of his biggest show of late 90s was The Practice. It was popular enough to run for 8 seasons and spawn an extended universe of interconnected spin-offs.
Among these spin-offs that include the light-hearted Ally McBeal and Amazon’s Goliath, Boston Legal manages to stand out as the show you really don’t want to skip. Starring several characters from the later seasons of The Practice, Boston Legal is a show about the comings and goings of a Boston-based law firm. Its key draw is the interplay between the clashing personalities of the ultra-conservative and at times unhinged Denny Crane (William Shatner), and the very much liberal but sleazy womanizer Alan Shore (James Spader). The unlikely but deep friendship between the two, and all the trouble their strong personalities bring to their firm keep things endlessly entertaining.
This might sound like sacrilege to some, but Denny Crane might very well be Shatner’s best role, allowing him to shine even more than the iconic Captain Kirk. And James Spader’s acting skills should require no introduction. He’s the man who could singlehandedly make a show like The Blacklist worth watching. In Boston Legal he gets to flex his acting skills in a show that’s not otherwise awful, and that alone makes it outstanding.
Boston Legal’s supporting cast is also worth mentioning. Actors like Lake Bell, René Auberjonois, Julie Bowen, and Taraji P. Henson should be instantly familiar to most TV enthusiasts. One annoying thing about the show, though, is its fondness for shaking things up. At one point or another, many of its supporting characters disappear with no warning or explanation either never to be seen again, or to pop back in for a small cameo a season or two down the line. This can at times get pretty annoying, but then you get a well-timed Klingon joke from Denny Crane and all becomes right in the world again.
If this was a list of shows we personally enjoyed, Suits wouldn’t be anywhere near it. On the surface it should be a great show — a brilliant underachiever scams his way into working for a law firm, and then has to learn the ropes really fast to hack it in the cutthroat New York legal scene without letting it slip he’s not actually a lawyer.
In reality, Suits is far from a lawyer show. Sure, it’s set in a law firm and features a cast of lawyers. But instead of the law, the show focuses on the relationships between these lawyers. It’s basically the show you assume The Good Wife is before you actually watch it. And the legal scenes themselves are very limited here, as Suits spends a lot of effort on finding ways to settle things out of court and just strongarm their opponents into dropping their cases.
Suits also, in our opinion, holds the dubious accolade of not having a single even remotely likable character among its entire main cast. It’s baffling to us how the show even got made, not to mention picked up again and again.
But that’s just us. Outside of our bubble, Suits is an absolute behemoth of a show. It somehow ran for a total of 9 seasons on the USA Network between 2011-2019. And then in 2023 it made its way to streaming through Netflix and Peacock. When it did, it became the single most-streamed show of 2023. One of its stars – Meghan Markle – even married an actual real-life prince, if you can believe it. Shows what we know, right? And because by now it’s clear that Suits must be doing something right for people to want to keep watching it, there’s even a Suits: L.A spin-off in the works. So if nothing else, the show at least deserves your curiosity.
Based on a series of Michael Connelly novels, The Lincoln Lawyer follows Mickey Haller, a charismatic attorney who drives around L.A. in his fancy town car, doing his best to help the little guy, while also working on headline-grabbing high-profile cases. Created for TV by David E. Kelley, who you may remember from the Boston Legal entry on this list, the show veers away from Kelley’s usual procedural approach and instead gives us one big serialized case per season. The show’s third season is currently slated to drop on Netflix on October 17, 2024.
Unlike most of the shows on this list, The Lincoln Lawyer harkens all the way back to the Perry Mason stories in that the titular lawyer here has to also act as the detective for most of the case. More often than not, the only way for him to win the big case he’s working on is to solve the crime behind it and unmask the real killer.
This leads to some mighty fine TV, and with the stories based on Michael Connelly’s works, you know you’ll be getting something good. If you’d like to explore more of those works, we have this Reading Order guide ready for The Lincoln Lawyer novels.
While most lawyer shows infuse their legal drama with occasional moments of levity, Franklin & Bash takes the opposite approach. The show is primarily a comedy that nevertheless manages to feature plenty of entertaining courtroom scenes.
Franklin & Bash follows two small-time lawyers with a reputation for out-of-the-box thinking and courtroom showmanship who get hired by one Stanton Infeld (Malcolm McDowell) to shake up the stuffy corporate culture of his prominent law firm. In terms of tone, Franklin & Bash can be compared to Silicon Valley, but with lawyers.
This connection is solidified by Kumail Nanjiani who portrayed Dinesh on Silicon Valley and plays Pindar, a sharp but agoraphobic lawyer, on Franklin & Bash. Another somewhat amusing casting choice here is Rhea Seehorn as assistant district attorney Ellen Swatello, a part that allowed her to hone her skills of portraying a lawyer to then deliver her stellar performance in Better Call Saul.
The Defenders is a short-lived legal show that over the course of its single season managed to strike a great balance between comedy and drama. Much like Franklin & Bash it follows a duo of flashy lawyers that know every trick in the book to stack the courtroom deck in their favor — only these two operate in Las Vegas and aim their antics at a somewhat more mature audience.
The show’s two lawyers are portrayed by Jim Belushi, the brother of the late John Belushi of the SNL and Blues Brothers fame, and Jerry O’Connell, who you probably remember from the fever dream of a movie that was Kangaroo Jack.
Amusingly enough, The Defenders (2010) is not in any way connected to The Defenders, a way more down-to-earth legal show that ran between 1961-1965. The newer show is not a sequel, reboot, or reimagining of the old one, they just share the same name. And less surprisingly, but still worth noting, it’s also not connected to The Defenders (2017) – The Avengers of Netflix superhero shows. So, if you do manage to find the right The Defenders, you’ll be treated to 18 episodes of light entertainment and amusing courtroom antics.
What are your favorite lawyer shows? Are there any you’re looking forward to? We’re very curious about the recent reboot of Matlock, but right now it’s too early to tell whether we’ll be adding it to this list.
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