5 shows to watch if you love Suits
USA NetworkWith Suits still being binged across the world – but with only so much to watch, these are five more shows that might fit any Suits-shaped hole in your life.
Suits ran on the USA Network for nine seasons from 2011 to 2019, with the show’s official synopsis as follows: “After impressing a slick lawyer with his razor-sharp mind, a college dropout scores a coveted associate job, even though he has no credentials.”
After its cancellation, Netflix picked Suits up, and its audience has been steadily building. So-much-so that for the last month – week-on-week – Suits has been smashing viewer records. Managing an incredible 3.88 billion minutes viewed between July 17 and July 23.
But with no new episodes currently planned, the following are five more shows to watch if you love Suits.
5 shows to watch if you love Suits
In picking our recommendations, we’re choosing shows that also take place in the legal world, in America.
With Suits possessing a lightness of touch, and being both comedy and drama, we’re also avoiding relentlessly serious series’, so stuff like Damages and Goliath don’t make the cut.
But that’s about it in terms of criteria, so without further ado, these are Dexerto’s picks for 5 shows to watch if you love Suits.
LA Law (1986-1994)
NBCCreated by Steven Bochco and Terry Louise Fisher, LA Law ran for eight seasons on NBC, during which the show won 15 Emmys and was a hit with both critics and audiences.
The good looking and well dressed ensemble cast included Corbin Bernsen, Harry Hamlin, Susan Day, Blair Underwood, and Jill Eikenberry as the staff of a Los Angeles law firm. While their cases dealt with the social and political stories of the day, touching on race, homophobia, abortion, harassment, domestic violence, and the AIDS crisis.
But much like Suits, humor underpinned the serious stuff, oftentimes when celebrities such as Buddy Hacket and Vanna White played themselves in storylines.
The Practice (1997-2004)
ABCDavid E. Kelley created The Practice for ABC, which followed the trials and tribulations of attorneys at a Boston law firm. Which makes sense as Kelley is a former lawyer who attended the Boston University School of Law.
If LA Law romanticised the courtroom, The Practice endeavoured to create the reality, or as Kelley puts it, to focus on “the actual mechanics of what it takes to prosecute and defend cases.”
The Practice won the Emmy for Outstanding Drama Series in 1998 and 1999, and it spawned the equally successful spinoff Boston Legal, which might be even more like Suits, and aired from 2004 to 2008.
The Good Wife (2009-2016)
CBSThe Good Wife combines law with politics, and was both a critical and commercial juggernaut when it aired on CBS from 2009 to 2016.
The show starred Julianna Margulies as Alicia Florrick, who resumes her legal career after her her husband – who also happens to be the Cook County State’s Attorney – ends up slap-bang in the middle of a sex scandal.
Unlike most legal shows – which focus on cases of the week – The Good Wife combined those standalone stories with Florrick’s complex overarching story. While it was followed by sequel series The Good Fight, which carried over the characters played by Christine Baranski and Cush Jumbo.
Better Call Saul (2015-2022)
AMCWhile never quite reaching the dizzy heights of its predecessor Breaking Bad – arguably the greatest TV ever made – Better Call Saul is nevertheless a fascinating character study, which also features some exhilirating courtroom scenes.
That’s because Jimmy McGill – aka Saul Goodman – is a lawyer who knows a thing or two about pulling a good con. So much like Michael Ross in Suits, he plays fast-and-loose with the law throughout six superb seasons.
The writing – by much of the Breaking Bad staff – is immaculate, while the performances of leads Bob Odenkirk and Rhea Seehorn elevate the material, turning Better Call Saul into a modern classic.
The Lincoln Lawyer (2022-present)
NetflixThe Lincoln Lawyer started out the lead character in a book by Michael Connolly. That then spawned a hit 2011 movie that starred Matthew McConaughey. While last year, it was adapted – by The Practice mastermind David E. Kelley – into a TV series for Netflix.
Manuel García-Rulfo plays the title character, an LA attorney called Mickey Haller who frequently works out of his Lincoln Navigator car, hence the title. While the first season is based on 2008 book The Brass Verdict, a sequel to the original Lincoln Lawyer novel.
Haller is a maverick much like the dynamic duo at the heart of Suits. And the show has clearly been a success, with Season 2 – based on 2011 novel The Fifth Witness – recently dropping on Netflix.
Suits is streaming on Netflix and Peacock now. Check out our other coverage below:
