Nancy Drew star Kennedy McMann has been cast in a lead role in The Good Lawyer, an upcoming spinoff of ABC’s hit The Good Doctor. While The Good Doctor deals with a young, autistic surgeon, The Good Lawyer will apparently center on a lawyer who struggles with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), a condition McMann says she actually lives with. McMann will star in the series opposite Emmy and Golden Globe award winner Felicity Huffman. Best known for her roles on SportsNight, Desperate Housewives, and American Crime, The Good Lawyer will be Huffman’s first major acting role since 2019.
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The Good Lawyer will get a backdoor pilot on The Good Doctor, with an eye toward a straight-to-series order if everything looks promising. According to Deadline, who first broke the casting news, here’s the synopsis for the episode: Dr. Shaun Murphy (Freddie Highmore) seeks legal representation to help him win a case and puts his faith in a promising, young lawyer, Joni DeGroot (McMann) who has obsessive compulsive disorder.
“I could say a million things,” McMann posted to Instagram, along with a screenshot of the Deadline story announcing her casting. “Thank you to my incredible team. Thank you to my parents and my husband, who have been by side through my lifelong journey with OCD. Thank you to all of you who have made me feel safe enough to talk openly about it. To be working on a project like this, to be a part of a representation of OCD in media that is genuine and true, is all I have ever wanted, and more than I could have ever hoped for. To do it with this team is even better.”
The dynamic between McMann’s character and Huffman’s seems likely to be very similar to what Highmore’s character has with Richard Schiff’s on The Good Doctor. Schiff is a seasoned veteran and a mentor figure to Highmore, and Huffman’s character is described as “a highly regarded attorney and partner at the law firm with a fierce intellect and dry wit. A seasoned veteran, Janet has represented Dr. Aaron Glassman (Richard Schiff) in several legal matters over the years, so he turns to her to represent his beloved protégé. But when Shaun declares that he wants Joni to represent him, Janet is forced to let Joni take lead on the case.”
Schiff and Huffman sparred in episodes of The West Wing, in which Schiff was a regular. Huffman was a regular on SportsNight, another series from The West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin.
Huffman’s last significant screen appearance was in 2019’s Tammy’s Always Dying, which was directed by Amy Jo Johnson. Also in 2019, Huffman pled guilty to federal charges pertaining to the nationwide college entrance exam cheating scandal. After admitting that she bribed a proctor to increase her daughter’s SAT score, Huffman served an 11-day prison sentence, was fined $30,000, and had to complete 250 hours of community service and one year supervised release.
