Law & Order has been the most famous legal drama on television for many years. It was beaten by its own spin-off, Law & Order: SVU, which eventually not only survived, but ended up with a higher IMDb rating, according to fans. It wasn`t over either, as the show was recorded for a 21st season, 13 years after its cancellation. From real-life events and well-researched documentaries to intriguing fiction, these are the best legal dramas currently available on Netflix to binge-watch. You`ll find everything from the simplest cases to the most distressing, each entertaining in its own way. Now approach the bank, defender. Later this month, CBS will make its final contribution to the genre with So Help Me Todd (September 29). Oscar-winning Marcia Gay Harden plays a Type A lawyer who hires her son Todd, an unfortunate private investigator, to work at her company to get his life back on track. In honor of the upcoming series premiere, we`ve rounded up some of the best legal dramas to see on screen. See if you don`t become addicted to one, two, or maybe all of them.
The best lawyers` shows and legal dramas are those that go beyond the procedural nature of the genre and take big risks. Law and Order: SVU, probably television`s most iconic and longest-running legal drama series, has to be number one on this list. It`s extremely difficult for a show to last more than 20 years (Grey`s Anatomy gets there) and stay relevant. One of the many reasons it has such a predominantly female audience is that SVU took sexual assault and sexual consent seriously before most shows. Since the department where the characters work deals with sex crimes, the show began openly discussing topics that, years #MeToo before, were considered taboo and too much for prime time. Justice is a legal drama series that revolves around Farah (Fatima Al Taei), a young woman who studied law in the United States and returns to her hometown of Abu Dhabi. She wants to practice independently with her newly graduated international degree, but her father, a lawyer from the prosperous city, has other plans for her. The story follows the challenges Farah faces in her professional and personal life, the delicate dynamics of her family, and her struggle to succeed alone as a lawyer. Are you a John Grisham fan? Have you seen all (or most) of the films based on his novels? Next, you might want to add The Innocent Man to your list. The documentary series focuses on two gruesome murders committed in Ada, Oklahoma, in the 1980s. Ronald Keith Williamson, a minor league basketball player, was charged with the rape and murder of Debra Sue “Debbie” Carter.
Ronald`s friend, Dennis Fritz, was also found guilty of aiding and abetting. While Dennis was sentenced to life in prison, Ronald was sentenced to death. 11 years later, a closer look at the DNA evidence proved both were innocent. The Trials of Gabriel Fernandez is an American documentary about the murder of eight-year-old Gabriel Fernandez. The six-part miniseries follows the real-life events surrounding a young boy, Gabriel, from Palmdale, California, who was abused and tortured for months leading to his death. Her mother, Pearl Fernandez, and boyfriend, Isauro Aguirre, were charged and convicted of a list of crimes, including first-degree murder with special circumstances of torture. A victim of juvenile murder, a prosecutor who comes back to her, a lawyer who considers it a career matter, and a suspect who could be innocent. Sounds like a typical legal act, right? But there`s more to The Trial than you see at first glance. The legal thriller series, titled Il Processo in Italian, follows the above characters involved in the murder of a teenage girl. It sheds light on how this incident affects the lives of everyone involved as they seek the truth, await the verdict and, in the meantime, walk on eggshells. However, once this show is finally over, there are still many more legal dramas to catch up. These include a solid list of classic court dramas, one of the most successful franchises in television history, and some of the best lawyer series that let them do whatever it takes to bring bad guys to justice and keep innocent victims out of jail.
In “The Case of the Lucky Loser” (season 2, episode 2), Mason is hired to help a wealthy heir accused of death. When the client is accused twice of the same crime, Mason fights even harder to dig up evidence, making a shocking revelation in court in a classic “Perry Mason moment.” At the peak of the series, there were memorable characters, from Chris Noth`s Mike Logan and Jerry Orbach`s Lennie Briscoe to the legendary prosecutor Jack McCoy, played by Sam Waterston. When it comes to scripted dramas, only SVU had more seasons than the original series` 22. Each major case in the series spans an entire season, so more time and effort has gone into researching and properly breaking down the prosecution process, unlike other shows that throw weeks of litigation into a 40-minute episode. What also makes the show great is the fact that Patty (Glenn Close) will do anything to win a case, no matter how unethical it is. With two iconic TV shows in his pocket, Bryan Cranston has returned to the medium playing a judge whose son kills a teenager in a hit-and-run. Your Honor is special because it`s one of the few legal dramas to be serialized, while others tend to be procedural shows of the week. The Practice is something of a first for television, as the legal drama was created in response to L.A. Law, a show that completely romanticized the American legal system; It made him flashier and fresher than he actually was.
Legal drama at the highest level: The three-part arc of “D-Girl,” “Turnaround” and “Showtime” (season 7, episodes 15, 16, 17) brings New York detectives to Los Angeles after the murder of a Hollywood director`s wife and culminates in a high-profile trial. The Netflix original miniseries is an adaptation of John Grisham`s only non-fiction book, The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town, which is based on the same real-life events. The series spans six episodes and features interviews with the victims` families and friends, Ada residents, lawyers and prosecutors involved in the case, and journalists. He also uses archival tapes and photos, as well as interactions with Grisham himself. The FBI`s Behavioral Science Unit, which is currently part of the Behavioral Analysis Unit, is well known to fans of detective novels who play an important role in various shows of the genre. Mindhunter tells the fictional story of a group of BSU officers tasked with investigating serial killers between the late `70s and early `80s to solve the ever-increasing number of cases that challenged the traditional policing approach. Often praised for the precision with which it portrays notorious killers like Ed Kemper (Cameron Britton) and Charles Manson (Damon Herriman), Mindhunter goes beyond the usual procedural structure, which focuses almost exclusively on the crimes themselves, to give its main characters time to shine and present viewers with their own stories. It`s a moving and thrilling series that keeps the audience on their toes, wondering what the next evolution will be, whether Agents Ford (Groff) and Tench (McCallany) conduct the next interview with Kemper, about the crimes they are currently investigating, or Officer Tench`s attempt to find his quiet six-year-old son.
