'Law Firm' Makes Latest Reality Show Case
(Sunday, July 24 12:02 AM)
By Jay Bobbin

LOS ANGELES (Zap2it.com) - Set "The Apprentice" in a law firm and you get ... well, "The Law Firm."

Renowned for his award-winning work on fictional shows such as "Boston Legal," "The Practice" and "Ally McBeal," television producer and former attorney David E. Kelley enters the unscripted-series arena with the Thursday, July 28, premiere of his involving, slickly made NBC show. Instead of Donald Trump, noted trial lawyer Roy Black is the man-to-please who puts 12 ambitious legal eagles -- from Anika Harvey to Olivier Taillieu -- through paces and cases, with $250,000 going to the last contender standing.

As Black stresses at the show's outset, though, it's not just about the money. At the Miami firm of which he is senior partner, he tells the competitors they are expected to deal with real-life clients, judges and juries "with excellence and compassion," in matters ranging from two people's argument over dogs all the way up the legal scale to murder trials. Working in teams, the lawyers don't always see eye-to-eye on strategy - to put it very mildly.

Also the mentor of the series "Picket Fences" and "Boston Public," Kelley says overseeing "The Law Firm" was "proposed to me. When I was doing 'The Practice,' my greatest fear was that somebody was going to come along and do those kinds of stories for real and put us out of business, because it would be more compelling and interesting to see for real the same stories we were telling in fiction.

"Lo and behold, not long afterward, [fellow 'Law Firm' producers] Jay Renfroe and David Garfinkle came into my office and pitched that very thing. This just has a feeling like it was meant to be, and it's a show that I would watch, which is how my particular compass works. They were looking for someone to help champion the idea, so I came on board."

Finding actual cases for the show wasn't a simple process, Kelley notes. "We went to various arbitration banks, and the trick was to find cases where everyone concerned was willing to give the case over to our formula. That meant it would be a two-day trial, and it would be binding. Having to wait years for a trial, there are a lot of frustrated litigants out there ... plus in smaller cases, it made financial sense for them to walk the plank with us. If this is a success, we expect people to line up at the door for the second year. A lot of people who sue just want to give voice to their outrage."

Black is no stranger to television work, appearing frequently on NBC News programs as a legal analyst. "He was my first choice," Kelley maintains. "Roy is a great teacher as well as a great trial lawyer, and he loves projects where he gets to teach the law."

Indeed, Black likes being involved in "The Law Firm," since he reasons, "These young lawyers are providing better legal service than these [clients] might get otherwise. They're very engaged, and they put an enormous amount of energy and enthusiasm into the cases, which were tried very well. I can always pick apart trial skills, but as we got toward the end [of production], it was a very high level of advocacy."

While a monetary prize does go to the "Law Firm" winner, Black doesn't believe that affected the lawyers doing what lawyers would do anyway. "If you're a good lawyer," he attests, "you're more interested in winning the case than thinking about the prize. Doing the best job possible is exactly the same thing as coming out ahead in terms of the prize, but I think what really drives these lawyers is the case and the client and the desire to win. If you wanted to make a lot of money, you'd go into real estate like Donald Trump."

Black is pleased to be working with Kelley, having previously used a cross-examination from an episode of "The Practice" in a law class he teaches. "To me, that was the best of all the legal shows," Black says. "America loves trials as entertainment. It's like Court TV becoming popular; there's no script, so nobody knows how things will end. I'm hoping people will see in this show how much work lawyers do. They all think you just put on your suit, you walk into the courtroom and you're ready to go. For every hour in the courtroom, though, you're usually spending 50 hours of preparation."

Since he still makes scripted series like "Boston Legal," which returns to ABC in the fall, Kelley concedes he's of two minds about reality shows ... particularly now that he's involved in one himself.

"My problem with most reality fare," he says, "is that it exists to appeal to the lowest common denominator, and to exploit and ridicule the contestants. There are other shows -- 'American Idol' being one, and I suppose 'The Apprentice' being another -- that really give talented people a chance to excel. I think there is a place for those shows on television, and I hope we find it, too."

LOS ANGELES (Zap2it.com) Two weeks of meager ratings have caused NBC to throw the book at its summer reality series "The Law Firm."
The show, in which teams of young attorneys try binding cases and shoot for a $250,000 prize, has been yanked from the network's schedule, effective this week. The remainder of the series will air on sister cable network Bravo, which was already running repeats of the NBC episodes. Airdates for the show Bravo haven't been set.

"The Law Firm" was producer David E. Kelley's ("Boston Legal") first foray into unscripted television, and judging from viewer response to the show, it's a good thing he still has his day job. After premiering to about 5.1 million viewers on July 28, the show dipped below 4 million viewers last week, prompting the move.

None of NBC's unscripted offerings this summer -- which include the fourth "Average Joe" and "I Want to Be a Hilton" -- has averaged more than 5 million viewers per week. That's a steep drop from last summer's slate, which featured the likes of "Last Comic Standing" (8.2 million viewers) and "Who Wants to Marry My Dad?" (7.4 million).
NBC is hardly alone in misfiring this summer, though. "The Cut" has aired in three different timeslots on CBS and failed to find an audience in any of them, averaging only 4.5 million viewers. ABC's "Hooking Up" hasn't hooked audiences either, and FOX quietly shunted "The Princes of Malibu" off to the fledgling Fox Reality Channel after two weeks.

Reruns of "Will & Grace" and "Scrubs" will replace "The Law Firm" Thursday (Aug. 11). Two episodes of "Scrubs" are scheduled for the following week.