Now on Netflix: A Slow-burn Legal Thriller Where the Defender Becomes the Defendant
Three seasons. One body in the trunk. And a courtroom showdown that threatens everything.
With over 300 million hours watched, Season 4 is officially on the way — and it’s going to shake the system.

The Lincoln Lawyer might have carved out a niche all of its own since debuting on Netflix in 2022, but its fellow legal drama Suits would beg to differ. Despite arriving on our screens over a decade before Mickey Haller and his team in LA, the series about a New York corporate law firm is just as brash and stylish. In fact, The Lincoln Lawyer fans will find plenty of similarities to their favorite show in the characters that populate Suits.

Although the two series are set on opposite coasts of the United States and in different branches of the legal profession, they share a lot in common in characterization and tone, particularly when it comes to their protagonists. As with The Lincoln Lawyer’s Mickey Haller, Suits delves into the personal lives of Mike Ross and Harvey Specter, as well as the ensemble supporting cast of characters at the Wall Street litigation firm Pearson Hardman. Both shows are about much more than the law itself, although their focus on the field does make for gripping storylines.

The Lincoln Lawyer Is Not Your Typical Legal Drama

It Goes Deeper Than Just Procedural Details Of The Law

One of the reasons why The Lincoln Lawyer stands out so clearly from other legal dramas is that it doesn’t limit itself to the courtroom. It blends Mickey Haller’s unconventional approach to amassing the evidence he needs to win cases with the struggles he goes through in his personal life.

The show’s depiction of the law is far from straightforward, as Mickey Haller has a distinctly uneasy relationship with the justice system.

Much of the series is about Mickey’s troubled romantic life, his previous battle with addiction, and his love of surfing. What’s more, The Lincoln Lawyer’s supporting characters aren’t just two-dimensional props serving his story. They’re clearly defined people with their own wants and needs, who grow into larger, more substantial roles with each season.

At the same time, most of The Lincoln Lawyer’s best episodes do tend to focus on thrilling courtroom drama, even if some of the show’s best twists come outside the courtroom. Still, The Lincoln Lawyer’s depiction of the law is far from straightforward, as Mickey Haller has a distinctly uneasy relationship with the justice system.

Suits Is One Of The Few TV Shows That Compare To The Lincoln Lawyer

It’s Stylistically Similar, With Much The Same Interpersonal Dynamics Between Characters

Custom image by Marcelo Leite

Just as Suits fans are almost certain to enjoy The Lincoln Lawyer, those who can’t wait for season 4 of Netflix’s flagship legal drama to come around should definitely check out Suits on the streaming platform. The show’s slick, fast-paced style, quickfire quips, high-stakes cases, and portrayal of underhanded approaches to litigation are familiar territory for Lincoln Lawyer fans.

However, rather than primarily handling criminal cases like Haller & Associates do, the legal firm in Suits, Pearson Hardman, works on the financial dealings of some of Wall Street’s biggest conglomerates. Still, regardless of their different fields of work, the two law firms share much the same internal dynamics, which is what both Suits and The Lincoln Lawyer are really about.

Fans Of Mickey Haller Will Love Harvey Specter

These 2 Maverick Lawyers Have A Lot In Common

The most obvious similarity between the two series, though, comes in the share of their leading lawyers, Mickey Haller and Harvey Specter. Each character is known as one of the best in the business, with Specter the self-anointed “best closer in the city” of New York. They both carry themselves with a certain arrogant swagger, and can’t stand losing.

Like The Lincoln Lawyer’s Mickey, many of Harvey Specter’s best scenes come via his maverick approach to litigation. He’s not afraid to break the rules or rub authority figures the wrong way. On the other hand, both he and Mickey go out of their way to incorporate talented people who aren’t qualified legal professionals into their team as associates. Fundamentally, the complex protagonists of Suits and The Lincoln Lawyer are quite unlike anyone else you’re likely to see fronting a legal drama. Love them or hate them, their winning mentality, caring approach for their colleagues, and apparent inability to separate their professional and private lives make them compelling viewing.