TV Lawyers Up: THE FIRM & LINCOLN LAWYER in Development

Currently in the development slate are two New York Times Best-Selling Novels, which have had their movie versions.

NBC is doing The Firm, which already has Josh Lucas in the title lead as Mitch McDeere, the role Tom Cruise played in the movie that premiered in the 90's. The TV series takes place in a more current setting and also stars Juliette Lewis, Molly Parker, Callum Keith Rennie and Tricia Helfer.

Lukas Reiter is credited as the series creator. He has worked on shows like Boston Legal, The Practice and Law and Order.

This series is expected to air January 2012.

And following up on the trend, ABC is developing its own lawyer series based on another New York Times Best-Selling Novel turned movie.

There are no details to the TV version of The Lincoln Lawyer for now.

The producers have yet to hire the guy who will play the lead (which Matthew McConaughey played in the movie). But Michael Connelly is credited as the series creator. He also happens to be the writer of the book, which incidentally, is a four-part series so they've got lots of materials to work with.

Of these two series, I'm assuming:

• Lincoln Lawyer would be classic procedural where each case is different per week and you won't have trouble following most of the story in case you miss an episode or juggle the episode order. 
• The Firm looks more serialized and mythological, where you'd have to watch from the beginning and go strictly from episode 1 to 24 to not get lost in the story.

Two shows with basically the same backbone, yet two different ways to tell a story.

This is why TV is awesome!