Television series

Kaz

Kaz is a scrappy, short-lived legal drama built on a genuinely startling premise for 1978 network TV: the hero earned his law degree in prison and never bothered to hide it. Ron Leibman plays him cocky and defensive, always half-expecting the room to turn on him. Rougher and angrier than its era's polished procedurals, it cares more about class and shame than courtroom fireworks — a curio worth an evening, not a binge.

If you liked this

Better Call Saul2015

Jimmy McGill's slow slide toward Saul Goodman is the ultimate study of a man the legal profession never quite trusts, brilliant and self-sabotaging in equal measure — everything Kaz's premise gestured at, given six seasons to breathe.

But It's a slow burn built for patience; if you wanted Kaz's fast, punchy hour, this asks for a much longer commitment.

Better Call Saul poster

The Practice1997

David E. Kelley's Boston firm is broke, exhausted, and morally compromised in exactly the scrappy way Kaz was — lawyers who win ugly, lose often, and never feel clean about either.

But Eight seasons of case-of-the-week plotting can feel formulaic if you binge it fast.

The Practice poster

Rectify2013

A man walks out of death row into a town that never forgave him — the quietest, most aching version of Kaz's outsider-among-the-respectable story, told at a patient, literary pace.

But It's slow and sad by design; there's little of Kaz's courtroom energy or forward momentum.

Rectify poster

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

My Cousin Vinny1992

Same engine as Kaz — a lawyer everyone assumes doesn't belong, forced to prove competence to a room built to dismiss him — just run through comedy instead of drama.

Joe Pesci as a Brooklyn lawyer nobody in an Alabama courtroom believes could possibly win — it's the outsider-lawyer premise cranked all the way up into farce, and it's one of the funniest courtroom movies ever made.

But It's broad comedy with zero interest in Kaz's grit or moral weight — pure entertainment, not drama.

My Cousin Vinny poster
More like this (8)

Goliath2016

Billy Bob Thornton plays a washed-up, half-disgraced lawyer clawing his way back against a system built to crush him — messy, boozy, and unapologetically pulpy in a way Kaz would recognize.

But Later seasons wander into soapier territory that some viewers find less satisfying than the first.

Goliath poster

Damages2007

A legal thriller that treats the profession as a knife fight, full of betrayals and moral rot beneath the sharp suits — great if you liked the danger lurking under Kaz's respectability.

But Its twisty, timeline-jumping structure asks for more sustained attention than Kaz's straightforward hours.

Damages poster

The Good Wife2009

Smart, adult, endlessly inventive about how law, politics and personal shame collide case by case — the polished network cousin to Kaz's grubbier, angrier world.

But It's glossier and more procedural than Kaz, with far less interest in class or criminal-underworld texture.

The Good Wife poster

Rake2010no page yet

This Australian series about a self-destructive barrister who can't stop torching his own life brings back Kaz's chaotic energy, dark humor and total disregard for professional dignity.

But The character's constant self-sabotage can wear thin if you need someone to root for unreservedly.

Boston Legal2004

Looser, funnier, and more theatrical than most legal dramas, with lawyers who bend rules for reasons that feel almost noble — a lighter echo of Kaz's willingness to work outside the lines.

But Its heightened, sitcom-adjacent tone is a big step away from Kaz's grittier realism.

Boston Legal poster

Bosch2015

Not a courtroom show, but a detective who distrusts the system as much as Kaz distrusted the bar — same suspicion of institutions, same stubborn code, just the other side of the law.

But It's a police procedural rather than a legal drama, so courtroom scenes are rare and secondary.

Bosch poster

Anatomy of a Murder1959

Decades before Kaz, this did the morally-compromised-client question with the same unflinching interest in guilt, shame, and what a lawyer owes a client he doesn't fully trust.

Jimmy Stewart defends a man he's not sure deserves defending, in a courtroom drama so frank about sex and violence it scandalized 1959 audiences — cool, controlled, and quietly devastating.

But Its deliberate black-and-white pace and old-Hollywood restraint will feel slow next to anything made after 1990.

Anatomy of a Murder poster

Gideon's Army2013no page yet

This is Kaz's crusading-outsider premise stripped of fiction — the same fight against a system that doesn't trust the people defending its rejects, minus a writer to give it an ending.

A quietly devastating documentary following three young public defenders in the American South, drowning in caseloads, fighting for clients the system has already decided are guilty.

But There's no fictional tidiness here — no courtroom triumphs, just exhausted idealism against a machine that rarely loses.

People

Cast

Writing

Production