Dick Wolf is spearheading another extension of his venerable Law & Order franchise, and this time he has partnered with one of the key auspices behind another hugely successful procedural drama franchise from the last two decades, CSI‘s Carol Mendelsohn.
NBC has given a straight-to-series order to Law & Order: For the Defense, a new legal drama from Law & Order creator Wolf, which will take a look inside a criminal defense firm. The series will put the lawyers under the microscope, along with the criminal justice system, with every week delivering the promise of a contemporary morality tale.
“This new show is exciting for me personally,” Wolf said. “We spent the last 30 years on shows that played offense. Now it will be great to play defense, and being able to do it with Carol is an honor and an opportunity for both of us to do television that hasn’t been done before.”
Mendelsohn will serve as showrunner. She is executive producing with Wolf, Arthur Forney, Julie Weitz and Peter Jankowski. The series will be produced by Universal Television, a division of Universal Studio Group, and Wolf Entertainment. It stems from Wolf’s and Mendelsohn’s deals with the studio.
“We can’t wait to bring audiences the latest chapter of Law & Order, which will explore a different angle of the criminal justice system,” said Lisa Katz, President, Scripted Programming, NBCUniversal Television and Streaming. “We’re excited about Dick Wolf’s perpetually thought-provoking approach as well his collaboration with Carol Mendelsohn, who we have been eager to do a series with for a long time.”
(Excerpt) Read more in Deadline