Seven gripping legal dramas to watch on Netflix right now
Half the reason why courtroom television series get away with a fair bit of nonsense is that, when it works, viewers stop caring whether every objection would survive in a real court. A witness folds, or some evidence turns up at the worst possible moment (in a sheer dramatic manner), and you are hooked.
Viewers clearly have an appetite for it, and the prime example for that would be Suits. The show had been off air for four years when it became America’s most-streamed programme of 2023, pulling in 57.7billion viewing minutes, while on the other end, Extraordinary Attorney Woo spent 21 weeks in Netflix’s global top ten.
Those shows are miles apart in tone, which rather gives the game away; nobody is watching them for a lesson in procedure.
We want someone worth following once the case goes all wrong and a reason to stick around, so that, before you know it, one episode has become four, and that’s Netflix magic.
Seven gripping legal dramas to watch on Netflix right now:
The Lincoln Lawyer (2022–Present)
Mickey Haller does not bother with the whole stuffy-law-office thing because his Lincoln is the office. Honestly, why pay the rent? Manuel Garcia-Rulfo plays the Los Angeles defence lawyer, who returns to work after recovering from an accident and painkiller addiction, only to inherit another solicitor’s caseload after the man is murdered. And one of those files involves a tech entrepreneur accused of killing his wife and her lover, so a lovely start.
There is some fun history here, too. Michael Connelly created Haller after meeting lawyer David Ogden, who actually worked from his car. This legal drama comes from Michael Connelly’s Mickey Haller novels, but Netflix did not begin with the first book, The Lincoln Lawyer, which had already been turned into the 2011 Matthew McConaughey film. Season one instead adapts the second novel, The Brass Verdict, and that is where the murdered-lawyer storyline comes from.
How to Get Away with Murder (2014–2020)
If Mickey Haller works in ethically muddy waters, Annalise Keating has basically built a house there. Viola Davis plays the criminal-defence lawyer and law professor, who picks five students to work with her before, naturally, everybody gets involved in a murder. At one point, it feels like they were being prepared to get themselves out of that very situation.
And thus, the beginning of the never-ending cycle of lies and cover-ups is created. Davis is the reason so much of it works. The show ran six seasons, earned ten Emmy nominations and became super addictive, so once those flash-forwards start, good luck stopping.
Suits (2011–2019)
Suits begins with one of the weirdest, highly unethical hiring decisions in legal television and turns it into nine seasons of absolute mayhem in tailored…suits. Harvey Specter hires Mike Ross, a college dropout with a photographic memory who has never actually attended law school, to work at a Manhattan firm obsessed with Harvard graduates. The problem is Mike knows the law frighteningly well, but if anyone discovers the whole fraud situation, both men are absolutely cooked.
Believability was never really the point, though, and viewers clearly did not care. After Suits landed on Netflix and Peacock, Nielsen recorded billions of viewing minutes in 2023, making it the year’s most-streamed programme.
Extraordinary Attorney Woo (2022)
Time to get some legal K-drama into the mix with Extraordinary Attorney Woo to change the whole rhythm of the list. Park Eun-bin plays Woo Young-woo, an autistic rookie lawyer joining a major Korean firm, where cases that often look impossible to crack get solved because she spots the one detail everyone else missed.
But the courtroom stuff is only half of it. Young-woo is also figuring out a workplace that does not always know what to do with her, and that gives the show a much warmer pulse. Netflix says the director and writer spent around a year persuading her because she wanted to portray Young-woo responsibly, and she consulted autism experts while preparing. It paid off, as the series topped Netflix’s non-English TV chart during its run and became a huge hit across Asia.
Your Honor (2020–2023)
Your Honor starts with Bryan Cranston playing Michael Desiato, a New Orleans judge whose teenage son kills another boy in a hit-and-run. Michael’s first instinct is to take him to the police, which is all very sensible, until he discovers the victim is the son of an organised crime boss, Jimmy Baxter. So Michael changes tack and starts covering for his son, using everything he knows about the justice system to wriggle around it. Not exactly what you want from a judge, is it?
The series is adapted from the Israeli drama Kvodo, with Peter Moffat developing the US version and Cranston taking his first regular TV lead since Breaking Bad. It was meant to be a limited series, but viewers had other ideas. Its popularity was enough to bring it back for a second season after Showtime called the first its most-watched debut season at the time. And when has anyone resisted more of Mr Cranston?
Juvenile Justice (2022)
After watching a judge bend the rules for his child, Juvenile Justice introduces us to one who has almost no patience for children who break them. And again, we jump into the legal K-drama space. Kim Hye-soo plays Sim Eun-seok, a newly assigned juvenile-court judge who is not exactly shy about disliking young offenders. Her cases involve everything from murder to abuse, while fellow judge Cha Tae-ju takes a far more sympathetic view of the children appearing before them; a clash is the least obvious thing about it.
A good thing is that it’s a limited series with only ten episodes, but do not confuse it for a touch-and-go show. They cover plenty of legal ground in this one. It not only looks at what young offenders have done but also at how families and society may have failed them first.
Law & Order (1990–2010 and 2022–Present)
And then, of course, there is the old warhorse. Law & Order splits its time between New York detectives investigating the crime and prosecutors trying to make the evidence work in court. You know the drill. The original series started in 1990, ended in 2010 and then made a comeback in 2022. Well, there had to be someone to give Grey’s Anatomy a tough fight.
Sam Waterston alone played prosecutor Jack McCoy across more than 400 episodes before leaving in 2024, having joined all the way back in 1994. Unlike most of the shows above, though, Law & Order is less fussed about one lawyer’s grand personal drama; the case is the thing and is worth enjoying for those who are here for just the courtroom drama.