New Law & Order Spinoff Gets Series Order at NBC

The Law & Order franchise is expanding and this time it’s taking viewers into the world of the defense. On Monday, NBC announced that Law & Order: For the Defense has received a straight-to-series order. Variety reports that the series “will put lawyers under the microscope, along with the criminal justice system, with every week delivering the promise of a contemporary morality tale.” Law & Order creator Dick Wolf along with Arthur Forney, Julie Weitz, Peter Jankowski, and Carol Mendelsohn will serve as executive producers. Mendelson will also showrun.

“This new show is exciting for me personally,” Wolf said. “We spent the last 30 years on shows that played offense. Now it will be great to play defense, and being able to do it with Carol is an honor and an opportunity for both of us to do television that hasn’t been done before.”

Mendelson previously helmed CSI and is the co-creator of CSI: Miami, CSI: New York, and CSI: Cyber and is an executive producer on the in-the-works CSI: Vegas.

Law & Order: For the Defense will be the eight in the Law & Order franchise which began with the original Law & Order series in 1990. The most recent addition, Law & Order: Organize Crime, debuted April 1, 2021, and marked the return of Law & Order: SVU‘s Christopher Meloni to the franchise. Another series in the franchise, Law & Order: Hate Crimes was ordered to series in 2018, but remains in development. Currently, only Law & Order: SVU and Law & Order: Organized Crime are airing on NBC. Law & Order: SVU has already been renewed for three additional seasons

“We can’t wait to bring audiences the latest chapter of Law & Order, which will explore a different angle of the criminal justice system, said Lisa Katz, president of scripted programming for NBCUniversal Television and Streaming. “We’re excited about Dick Wolf’s perpetually thought-provoking approach as well his collaboration with Carol Mendelsohn, who we have been eager to do a series with for a long time.”