David E. Kelley was on a roll in the late nineties, but The Practice was something else entirely. It wasn’t the whimsical, dancing-baby-fever dream of Ally McBeal. It was gritty. It was desperate. Honestly, it was kind of depressing if you really sat with it for too long. While most legal shows today feel like sleek, high-definition procedurals where the good guys always win with a witty quip, Bobby Donnell and his crew were usually just trying to keep their lights on while defending people they knew were probably guilty.
It premiered as a mid-season replacement on ABC in 1997. Nobody expected it to become a juggernaut. It started in a cramped, dusty office in Boston, far removed from the mahogany-row prestige of "white shoe" firms. This was a show about the "street law" grind. It asked a question most of us hate to answer: How do you live with yourself when your job is to make sure a murderer walks free on a technicality?
The Moral Bankruptcy of Bobby Donnell
At the heart of the show was Bobby Donnell, played by Dylan McDermott. He started as the moral compass, or at least he tried to be. But the brilliance of the writing was how it slowly eroded that compass. By the time the show reached its middle seasons, Bobby was often a shell of his former self, haunted by the "victories" he secured.
The firm—Donnell, Young, Dole & Frutt—was perpetually broke. That’s a detail modern shows often skip. In Suits or The Good Wife, there’s always a sense of opulence. In The Practice, they were literally arguing over the cost of office supplies and taking "pig cases"—referring to low-rent, high-risk clients—just to pay the rent. This financial desperation fueled the ethical lapses. When you can't pay your paralegals, you start looking at the Fourth Amendment as a weapon rather than a principle.
You’ve got characters like Eugene Young (Steve Harris), who was arguably the best litigator in the room but constantly battled the reality of being a Black man in a justice system that felt rigged. Then there was Eleanor Frutt (Camryn Manheim), who won an Emmy for a reason. She wasn't just a "tough lawyer"; she was a person who used her perceived vulnerabilities as a shield and a sword. The dynamics weren't balanced. They were messy.
Why the "Plan B" Defense Changed Everything
If you watched the show during its peak, you remember "Plan B." It’s probably the most famous, or infamous, legal tactic in TV history. Essentially, if you know your client did it, you create a "reasonable doubt" by pointing the finger at someone else—anyone else—during the trial. Even if that person is an innocent bystander or a grieving family member.
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It was brutal to watch.
The show didn't celebrate these tactics. It showed the aftermath. It showed Jimmy Berluti (Michael Badalucco) having a literal nervous breakdown because he couldn't handle the "stench" of the work. This wasn't "law as justice." This was "law as a game of chess played in a sewer." Most legal dramas today are too afraid to make their protagonists that unlikable. Kelley wasn't. He leaned into the ugliness.
The Crossover Era and the Boston Legal Shift
The show eventually gave birth to Boston Legal, but the transition was jarring. To understand The Practice, you have to look at the final season. The show was bleeding viewers and the budget was slashed. ABC basically told Kelley to fire half the cast. It was a bloodbath. Dylan McDermott, Kelli Williams, and several others were out.
Enter James Spader as Alan Shore.
Shore was a different beast. He was a sociopath with a heart of gold, or maybe just a very talented shark who enjoyed the blood in the water. The tone shifted from a gritty drama to a dark, satirical comedy. It worked—it saved the franchise—but fans of the early seasons often felt betrayed. The original show was about the soul-crushing weight of the law. Boston Legal was about how much fun you could have breaking it.
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The crossover episodes with Ally McBeal also serve as a weird time capsule. Seeing the hyper-realistic Bobby Donnell interact with the cartoonish world of Ally was a tonal nightmare, yet it's the kind of big-swing television we just don't see much of anymore. It reminded you that even within the same universe, the "law" looks very different depending on how much money is in your bank account.
The Guest Stars and the "Kelley" Trope
David E. Kelley has a "type." He loves eccentric judges and terrifying defendants. Think about the recurring guest stars. You had Holland Taylor as Judge Roberta Kittleson, who was sexually aggressive and utterly terrifying to the junior associates. You had Michael Emerson—before he was in Lost—playing William Hinks, a man who may or may not have been a serial killer with a penchant for keeping heads in bags.
The show excelled at these long-arc trials. They didn't always wrap things up in 42 minutes. Some cases dragged on for episodes, mirroring the actual exhaustion of a real trial. They dealt with the "Twinkie defense" style of legal absurdity, but they grounded it in the high stakes of the death penalty. Massachusetts doesn't have the death penalty, but the show frequently moved to federal court or found ways to heighten the stakes so that a loss didn't just mean a fine—it meant a life.
The Reality of the "Technicality"
One of the biggest misconceptions about The Practice is that it was a "law and order" clone. It wasn't. Law & Order is about the system working. The Practice was about the system failing, or rather, the system being manipulated.
It taught a generation of viewers about the "exclusionary rule." If the cops didn't have a warrant, the evidence stayed out. Period. The show didn't frame this as a "loophole." It framed it as a constitutional necessity that occasionally allowed monsters to walk free. That nuance is missing from the "blue lives matter" style procedurals that dominated the mid-2000s. It forced the audience to be uncomfortable. It made you root for a guy to get off for murder just because you liked his lawyer, and then it made you hate yourself for it in the final scene.
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The Legacy of the Boston Bar
While the show ended in 2004, its fingerprints are everywhere. You see its influence in shows like How to Get Away with Murder, though that show leaned way more into the soap opera elements. The Practice stayed closer to the pavement. It was about the smell of old coffee, the sound of a closing cell door, and the silence of an office where nobody wants to look each other in the eye.
It also pioneered the "shaky cam" and fast-paced editing for legal scenes long before it became a cliché. The camera was always moving, always frantic, mimicking the anxiety of the characters. When Bobby Donnell stood up to give a closing argument, the camera didn't just sit there. It circled him like a predator.
If you're going back to rewatch it now, be warned: the first three seasons are some of the best television ever made, but it gets bumpy. The cast changes are hard to swallow, and the shift toward the Alan Shore era feels like a completely different series. But as a document of the moral ambiguity of the 90s, it’s unparalleled.
How to Watch and What to Look For
If you want to understand why this show won the Emmy for Outstanding Drama Series back-to-back in 1998 and 1999, you have to pay attention to the silence.
- Watch the "Plan B" episodes first. They define the show's ethos. Look for "The Pursuit of Dignity" in Season 3.
- Focus on the Judge-Lawyer relationship. Unlike modern shows where judges are just plot devices, in this show, they were characters with their own biases and vendettas.
- Check out the early Michael Emerson episodes. His performance as William Hinks is genuinely one of the most chilling things ever broadcast on network TV.
- Compare the first episode to the last. The descent of Bobby Donnell is a masterclass in character erosion.
The show isn't always easy to find on every streaming service due to some music licensing issues that cropped up over the years, but it usually lives on platforms like Hulu or Disney+ (depending on your region). It’s worth the hunt. It reminds us that "the practice" of law isn't about being right. It's about being the last one standing when the gavel drops.
To truly appreciate the series, look into the real-life Boston legal scene of the late 90s. Kelley, a former lawyer himself, drew heavily from the atmosphere of the Suffolk County courthouses. The show captures a specific era of "street law" that has largely been replaced by digital filings and corporate mergers, making it a gritty time capsule of a lost legal world.
Practical Next Steps for Fans and Researchers
- Audit the Legal Accuracy: If you are a law student, watch the Season 2 episode "The Trial" and compare the defense’s use of the Fifth Amendment to real-world Massachusetts precedents from that era.
- Trace the Spin-offs: Watch the final six episodes of Season 8 of The Practice immediately followed by the pilot of Boston Legal to see how David E. Kelley executed one of the most drastic tonal shifts in television history.
- Explore the "Kelley-verse": Find the 1998 crossover event with Ally McBeal ("The Inmates" and "Give and Take") to see how two vastly different shows attempted to share a single continuity—a precursor to the massive "shared universes" of today's streaming giants.