Prior to becoming an actor,
Dennis Farina (Detective Joe Fontana) was a Detective in the Chicago Police Department for eighteen years. He got into acting through his former partner and police commander,
Chuck Adamson, who had retired and became a police consultant on movies and television shows.
The distinctive "thunk-thunk" sound effect used in between scenes was created by combining close to a dozen sounds, including that of a group of monks stamping on a floor. The sound is intended to be reminiscent of both a judge's gavel and a jail cell door slamming.
Towards the end of the fifth season, executive producer
Dick Wolf decided not to renew
Chris Noth's contract, citing that the interaction between Logan and the similarly jaded Briscoe (
Jerry Orbach ) lacked enough dramatic contrast. Viewers and critics were shocked at the dismissal of the most popular cast member at that time. Years later, Noth convinced Wolf to produce
Exiled (1998) to wrap up the story of Mike Logan, which Noth felt had been prematurely extinguished on the show. Noth returned again to revive the character for three seasons of
Law & Order: Criminal Intent (2001).
During the 2008 Presidential election season, TNT stopped re-running episodes of Law & Order that featured
Fred Thompson as District Attorney Arthur Branch. Thompson was running for the Republican nomination for President, and due to federal election law, TNT would have been required to give other candidates equal air time. Thompson eventually dropped out of the race.
The last of the original cast members to depart the show was
Chris Noth. Although
Steven Hill was often perceived as an original cast member, he joined the cast after the pilot episode. Noth's character Detective Mike Logan was written out at the end of season 5 because creator
Dick Wolf felt that Logan and his partner Det. Lennie Briscoe had developed personality styles that were too similar. Noth did return to the L&O universe as Det. Logan in the TV movie
Exiled (1998) (1998) and then again in
Law & Order: Criminal Intent (2001), where Logan became a regular character for three seasons from 2005-2008.
When the show began airing in re-runs on TNT, new digital technology was used to insert "product placements" (paid appearances of name-brand products) into the show. The easiest to spot is for Coca-Cola. Any time you see a Coke can sitting on a desk, it has been added digitally.
Michael Moriarty resigned at the end of the fourth season after a long, vocal battle of words with Attorney General
Janet Reno, who was making efforts to censor television violence. He felt that NBC was trying to silence him when two talk show appearances on the network were pulled at the last moment and his role was reduced considerably in the fourth season episode
Mayhem (1994).
Dick Wolf claims this was entirely coincidental. Moriarty claims he was forced into a situation where he had to resign. His character, EADA Ben Stone, also resigned on the show. After quitting the series, Moriarty moved to Canada, where he considered forming a political party.
With the airing of its twentieth season, beginning September 25, 2009, this show tied the record held by
Gunsmoke (1955) for the longest running prime-time drama series on U.S. television. However, it was announced in May 2010 that the series was not renewed for the 2010-2011 season. This longevity record was tied by its spin-off
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999) in September 2018. The series returned for a twenty-first season in 2022.
Jerry Orbach auditioned for the role of Sergeant Max Greevey, but lost out to
George Dzundza. Orbach later joined the show as Detective Lennie Briscoe.
Detective Mike Logan's brown leather coat was not supplied by the wardrobe department.
Chris Noth bought that coat from a second-hand clothing store.
The series was originally to air on Fox, but CEO
Barry Diller later decided against it. The series was then pitched to CBS, and the pilot episode
Everybody's Favorite Bagman (1990) was produced in 1988. CBS did not pick up the series, but NBC did in 1989, and the series began in 1990.
Steven Hill and
Sam Waterston were both 68 years old when they started playing the District Attorney. Hill turned 68 in 1990, Waterston turned 68 in 2008. Sam Waterston started his role on Law & Order in 1994.
It is said that District Attorney Adam Schiff is loosely based on the real Manhattan District Attorney
Robert Morgenthau, and it's been reported that Morgenthau himself enjoys the character of Schiff.
At the time of the show's creation, one-hour dramas were going through a slump, with sitcoms being more popular, and much more likely to get strong syndication deals for re-runs.
Dick Wolf thought that it might be easier to sell the show in thirty-minute segments, and came up with the concept of the first half of the show being the police investigation and the second half the legal procedure. Dramas started rebounding in popularity shortly after "Law & Order" debuted, so this never ended up becoming an issue with re-run deals.
S. Epatha Merkerson wears her hair in interlocks. Although she has played police officers in other shows with her own hairstyle, notably Captain Margaret Claghorn in the futuristic crime series
Mann & Machine (1992), she felt it would be unrealistic for an ambitious New York City Police Lieutenant to adopt such a hairstyle, so she wears a wig as Lieutenant Van Buren.
To fully immerse himself in the role of Detective Mike Logan,
Chris Noth used to shadow real New York detectives. In 1992, he told the New York Times about a time he tagged along on a missing person investigation. When interviewing the roommate of the missing person, he recalled the smell of the apartment. "The detective smelled death," Noth told the publication. The body of the missing person was later found in the apartment.
Jesse L. Martin was absent from the last four episodes of the fifteenth season. He left the show temporarily to work on
Rent (2005). His character, Detective Ed Green, was shot in the line of duty and was recovering offscreen. For those four episodes, Martin was replaced by
Michael Imperioli as Detective Nick Falco.
The show was based on and inspired by a BBC 4 part drama
Law & Order (1978) about the British legal system broadcast in 1978 and written by
GF Newman, which was seen by
Dick Wolf. The drama looked at an event ( a corrupt Scotland Yard detective frames a known criminal for an armed robbery) from four different perspectives: the policeman's, the criminal's, the prosecution and defense lawyers and finally life in prison for the unfairly convicted villain. Wolf liked the innovative idea of following a crime from both the police investigation and then the lawyers perspective through to the trial and verdict. Wolf offered Newman an onscreen credit but Newman turned it down feeling it wasn't necessary.
At the time the series premiered in 1990, most dramas were shooting in Los Angeles and only using establishing shots of New York. "Law & Order," however, decided to shoot entirely in New York City to really get a feel for the city streets. "You get glimpses of the buildings through windows,"
Joseph Stern, an executive producer on the show at the time, told The New York Times in 1992. "And you know you can't be anyplace else. And you're always hearing the city. The traffic. The voices. The cops have a New York accent." The majority of the franchise still shoots in New York City 30 years after the original show premiered.
The show was known for underplaying the background stories of its characters. During the 1995-96 season, hints were dropped that the characters of Jack McCoy and Claire Kincaid were lovers (a fact confirmed in a later episode). Many fans enjoy spotting where and when these subtle hints occur in each episode. However, when
Elisabeth Röhm's character Assistant District Attorney Serena Southerlyn came out as gay in her very last line on the show (after she is fired, Southerlyn asks, "Is this because I'm a lesbian?") after absolutely no other indication of her character's sexual orientation had been given during her four years on the show, the writers came in for widespread derision from television critics (including Slate's Dana Stevens, USA Today's Robert Bianco, and Tim Goodman of the San Francisco Chronicle) and on internet message boards for using the revelation of her orientation for its shock value instead of allowing it to be any part of her character.
George Dzundza (Sergeant Max Greevey) left the series after the first season because he was tired of the commute to New York City from his Los Angeles house. He also bristled at the show's focus on the ensemble over its leads (namely, him). This didn't endear him to said ensemble and he left after the first season. Allegedly he and his onscreen partner
Chris Noth (Detective Mike Logan) had a particular antipathy which, fortunately, added depth and realism to the squabbles between their characters. Dzundza was replaced by
Paul Sorvino (Sergeant Phil Cerreta), who got along better with the cast but left in the third season because he disliked the show's work schedule and, as an opera singer, he wanted to preserve his vocal cords. Sorvino was replaced by
Jerry Orbach (Detective Lennie Briscoe), and fortunately, everybody loved him, up to and including real New York City Police Department officers.
S. Epatha Merkerson announced that she was leaving the series after the twentieth season, but the show was later cancelled after that season. She did not return when the series was revived in 2022.
Sometimes during the trial, a witness will refuse to answer or try and evade a question so the prosecution/defense will often ask the judge presiding over the case for permission to treat the witness as hostile. What this means is when a witness is called to the stand, their testimony is expected to support the argument of the side that subpoenaed them. If the witness becomes evasive or changes their testimony on the stand, the (E)ADA's/Defense Attorney's are given permission by the judge to treat the witness as if he were called to the stand by the opposing side which legally changes the nature of the questions and language the lawyer uses to ask them. That is to say, the direct examination becomes a cross-examination, allowing either the prosecution or defense to use leading questions, giving the lawyer who is questioning the witness more latitude to suggest how the witness should answer.
Season eight (1997-98) marks the first season of the series in which there were no main character changes. From season two on, there was at least one change in the main characters, either at the beginning or during the season.
Dr. Emil Skoda (
J.K. Simmons) was named after the founder of the Czech engineering and manufacturing firm, Skoda.
All three of the series' longest-serving cast members lasted far longer than those they replaced:
Jerry Orbach (Detective Lennie Briscoe) (1992-2004) lasted twelve years and replaced
Paul Sorvino (Sergeant Phil Ceretta) who lasted only a year and a half (1991-1992);
S. Epatha Merkerson (Lieutenant Anita Van Buren) (1993-2010), was with the series for seventeen seasons, replaced
Dann Florek (Captain Don Cragen), who lasted three years (1990-1993);
Sam Waterston (Executive Assistant District Attorney/District Attorney Jack McCoy) (1994-2010), who was with the series for sixteen seasons, replaced
Michael Moriarty (Executive Assistant District Attorney Ben Stone), who lasted four years (1990-1994) and all three of the series' longest-serving cast members that were not there when the series ended lasted far longer than the ones that replaced them.
Jerry Orbach (Detective Lennie Briscoe) (1992-2004) lasted twelve years and was replaced by
Dennis Farina (Detective Joe Fontana) (2004-2006) who lasted two years.
Steven Hill (District Attorney Adam Shiff) (1990-2000) lasted ten years and was replaced by
Dianne Wiest (District Attorney Nora Lewin) (2000-2002) who lasted two years
Jesse L. Martin (Detective Ed Green) (1999-2008) lasted nine years and was replaced by
Anthony Anderson (Detective Kevin Bernard) (2008-2010) who lasted two years.
The distinctive typeface used for all titles, credits, and on-screen "scene change" cards, for this show, and all of its spin-offs, is named "Friz Quadrata." The typeface used for "Starring" and "Created By" in the opening credits, the lone exception, is Eurostile.
Many of the actors on Law & Order were also regular cast members on HBO series
The Wire (2002). In fact, at least twenty actors that made a special appearance on Law & Order went on to major story lines in "The Wire". For instance,
Peter Gerety played an attorney on Law & Order, and on "The Wire", he played a judge who authorized the wiretap which was the initial premise of the show.
Among New York actors it is considered a rite of passage to appear on Law and Order, in fact
Dick Wolf himself has said: "If you're going to the theatre and the actor does not have a 'Law & Order' credit on the Playbill, it means he's just got off the bus [to New York], or is really a bad actor."
Not only were longtime costars
Jerry Orbach and
Jesse L. Martin both Broadway musical stars before being regulars on Law & Order, but both men were also once in Broadway shows that, famously, had their creators die on opening night: Gower Champion, the director/choreographer of 42nd Street (starring Orbach), and Jonathan Larson, the composer/lyricist of Rent (starring Martin).
The telephone records, LUDs, is Local Usage Details.
Lorraine Toussaint played defense attorney Shambala Green opposite prosecutor Ben Stone (
Michael Moriarty) in six episodes of
Law & Order (1990) from 1990 to 1994. In a 1998 interview, Toussaint said that she and Moriarty got along so well, and had such potent onscreen chemistry together, that Moriarty asked producer
Dick Wolf to develop a love interest story arc for the two characters. This idea was rejected. Moriarty left "Law & Order" after its fourth season, and Toussaint would play Shambala Green only twice more: in a 2003 episode of "L&O", and in a 2016 episode of the
Dick Wolf-produced series
Chicago P.D. (2014).
In the early episodes of the show, before a permanent courtroom set was built, the principal courtroom used for trial scenes was an actual room in the New York City courthouse. It had previously served as a holding area for jurors awaiting assignment and is identifiable by the paintings on its walls.
In the mid nineties the show began airing in reruns on the A&E cable network. At the time hour-long shows usually did not end up getting syndicated due to their length. Many networks usually don't have an hour's worth of time to rerun a show thus they preferred half-hour sitcoms. A&E and other cable networks, however, usually had plenty of available time on their schedules and thus this led to the popularity of hour-long dramas being syndicated.
On May 14, 2010, NBC announced that it had canceled Law & Order and would air its final episode on May 24, 2010, opting instead to pick up
Law & Order: LA (2010) for a first season (which became its only season) and renew
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999) for a twelfth. Immediately following Law & Order's cancellation, the series creator
Dick Wolf attempted to find a new home for the series by asking producers at NBC Universal to make a deal with TNT, which held syndication rights to the show, for a twenty-first season if an acceptable license fee could be bargained. Talks between the two started up after upfronts. However, TNT said in a statement it was not interested in picking the show up for a new season. After TNT discussions fell through, cable network AMC also considered reviving Law & Order; however, attempts to revive it failed and in July 2010, Wolf declared that the series had now "moved to the history books". The series was revived on NBC in 2022.
Over the course of the show, several well-known guest stars played in roles adapted from the headlines. For instance,
Chevy Chase played in an episode in which his character was drunk and ranting sexually and racially insensitive comments at one of the detectives on the show. This was situation was very close to a situation that happened in real life with
Mel Gibson. Of all the guest stars on Law & Order,
William Kunstler,
Michael Bloomberg, and
Rudy Giuliani are the only guest stars to play themselves.
High-tech devices were deliberately kept in the background-and often out of sight-throughout the series. When it premiered in 1990, everyday technology was still relatively limited, but even by its original end in 2010, the show maintained this low-tech aesthetic. Many precinct scenes continued to depict police officers and detectives using typewriters rather than computers or laptops-something that, even as late as 2020, persisted in some departments. Likewise, scenes in the District Attorney's office frequently showed attorneys relying on physical law books instead of digital devices.This approach stood in sharp contrast to franchises like CSI and NCIS, where technology was front and centre. However, when the series was revived for its 2022 reboot (Season 21), the writers began to embrace modern advancements, incorporating storylines involving AI chatbots, deepfakes, and other contemporary technologies.
Law & Order episodes are often advertised as being "ripped from the headlines." Many people mistake this to mean that they are based on real events. In reality, the slogan is referring to the show's practice of coming up with stories that are partially inspired by recent headlines. However, with almost no exceptions, only a fairly small portion of the episode will resemble the real incident or incidents that it is inspired by. There might be a few scenes that resemble a well-known headline while the majority of the episode goes in a different direction, or there could be one character that is based on a famous individual, but the circumstances the person encounters are largely made up.
The series was originally set to film in Los Angeles, but
Dick Wolf fought NBC to film it in New York City, and won. In May 2010, it was announced that a new Los Angeles-based spin-off, tentatively titled
Law & Order: LA (2010), would start in the 2010 fall line-up.
Eriq La Salle was a finalist for the role of Assistant District Attorney Paul Robinette.
Martin Sheen was considered for the role of Sergeant Max Greevey.
In real life the prosecuting Assistant District Attorney's would not be meeting with the Manhattan District Attorney himself to discuss their cases but with a homicide bureau chief who would be the one who would have a meeting with the District Attorney. It would be like the homicide detectives meeting with the police commissioner instead of their commanding officer.
A "RIP", Reduction In Pay, is NYPD slang for a disciplinary action being taken against a Member Of the Service (MOS). A one day RIP, loss in pay, would mean that the cop would lose one vacation day as a penalty for an infraction.
Jerry Orbach was a talented singer who performed on Broadway; however, his character Detective Lennie Briscoe expresses disdain for opera several times. Operas of which he speaks scornfully include DON GIOVANNI (Mozart), TRISTAN AND ISOLDE (Wagner), LA TRAVIATA (Verdi), AIDA (also Verdi) and LA BOHEME (Puccini). In one episode (
Blaze (2003)), when someone he is questioning mentions Wagner's opera GÖTTERDÄMMERUNG, Briscoe replies "Bless you!"; in another (
Payback (2004)), when a suspect he is arresting complains that he has tickets for the Metropolitan Opera that evening, Briscoe replies: "Well, you're in luck. It's 'opera-week' at Rikers. They're doing an all-male version of CARMEN."Arthur Branch, on the other hand, is enough of an opera buff that he once sang the famous aria "Vesti la giubba ( "Ridi, Pagliacco" ) from Leoncavallo's opera PAGLIACCI (The Clowns) outside a girl's window, wearing full clown costume. (See
Chosen (2003)). Since the aria is written for tenor voice, and
Fred Thompson's voice is a low baritone, it must be assumed either that he transposed the music down, or, that his voice changed a great deal between his college days and the time when he became a prosecutor, or, that he was very very drunk when he sang.)
In contrast to previous legal dramas like
Perry Mason (1957),
The Defenders (1961), and
Matlock (1986), this series focused on prosecutors rather than defense attorneys.
Dick Wolf explained, "I believed the heroes weren't the defense attorneys who were getting these scumbags off. The heroes were the prosecutors." Indeed, defense attorneys are often mocked and derided in the series.
The Early Case Assessment Bureau (ECAB) screens all arrests, determining whether a prosecution will be declined or will go forward and if the latter, what charges will be brought. ECAB staff members interview police officers and, in some instances, victims and witnesses. The bureau drafts the charging document (i.e., the complaint) upon which the defendant will initially be arraigned, and prepares supporting documents and notices to be submitted in court. Assistant district attorneys in the bureau also staff and supervise prosecutors in the arraignment court parts in Criminal Court.
In the state of New York a Molineux hearing is a pre-trial hearing on the admissibility of prior uncharged crimes by the defendant as evidence. In most instances evidence of a person's prior crimes, that they have not been convicted of, is inadmissible due to the fact that they were never found guilty of them and that it can be highly prejudicial; in fact New York is the only state that makes an exception for it. In New York under certain circumstances a defendant's prior bad acts can be submitted as evidence if they show a pattern of behavior similar to the current crime the defendant is being charged with. This is most commonly used in the trials of people that commit serial crimes, like rape and murder, when there is a clear pattern in the victim type, MO and signature of the attacks. If a prosecutor wishes to bring in evidence of prior uncharged crimes they must request a Molineux hearing, it is then up to the judge to determine if the pattern of behavior in these prior crimes is similar enough to the current crime in question and to weigh that against how it might prejudice the jury.
Detective Joe Fontana (
Dennis Farina) likes to compel people to help the police investigation with the line "We're authorized".
Alternate titles were Life & Death, Night & Day, and Catch 'Em and Cook 'Em.
Detective Briscoe's birthday is January 1, 1940.
Dick Wolf grew up watching
Dragnet (1951), and it was a major influence on this series, right down to the opening narration.
The revival series (Season 21) originally emerged following the cancellation of another series titled Law & Order: For the Defense, which NBC had greenlit with a straight-to-series order on May 3, 2021. For the Defense was envisioned as a new legal drama by creator
Dick Wolf, delving into a criminal defense firm, scrutinizing defense attorneys and the criminal justice system, and centering each episode on a contemporary morality tale. Although For the Defense hadn't cast any leads,
Carol Mendelsohn, who had worked on the CSI franchise had been tapped as a show-runner for the new series before it was canceled. It's believed that For the Defense was canceled due to the fact that it was purely a court room drama and Dick Wolf's previous court room dramas
Law & Order: Trial by Jury (2005),
Conviction (2006) and
Chicago Justice (2017) had all been canceled after 13 episodes.
Throughout all the different New York based Law & Order programs, when the police want to obtain a confession - real or coerced, they will often use the possibility of the defendant being given the death penalty, despite the fact that the state of New York hasn't put anyone to death since 1963.
Series creator
Dick Wolf often used guest appearances as springboards for actors into regular cast roles, these include:
- Actor Jerry Orbach, who first appeared in the second season episode The Wages of Love (1991) as defense attorney Frank Lehrmann, before going on to play Detective Lennie Briscoe, who would become the face of the franchise for the better part of the series. Lehrmann was every bit as much of a deadpan snarker as Briscoe, he is remembered for the line "It's called plea bargaining, not plea scalping!".
- Actress S. Epatha Merkerson, who appeared in the episode Mushrooms (1991), where she played Mrs Denise Winters, the bereaved mother of a murder victim, she was later cast as Lieutenant Van Buren.
- Actress Annie Parisse, who appeared in the episode Attorney Client (2002) as Jasmine Blake, the stripper girlfriend of a defendant shortly before being cast as ADA Alexandra Borgia. Parisse allegedly wanted to play the same character and claim that she had been working as a stripper to pay for law school, but Dick Wolf wasn't keen on the idea, and not without reason; in the story, initially Jack McCoy wasn't keen on Abbie Carmichael becoming his assistant due to her inexperience- she'd been an ADA for five years at that point. Given the short timespan between Annie Parisse's appearance as a stripper and her debut as Borgia, it would stretch credibility that she went from paying her way through law school to climbing the ranks of the DA's office in such a short amount of time.
- Actor Jeremy Sisto, who appears as defense attorney Clint Glover in the episode The Family Hour (2007), would appear in the very next episode Called Home (2008), as Detective Cyrus Lupo and continues this role till the end of season 20.
- Actor Anthony Anderson appeared as a different cop called Lucius Blaine in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999) episode Fat (2006) before being cast as Detective Kevin Bernard.
- Actress Milena Govich had a one-off role in the episode Flaw (2005) as Geneva. This precedes two regular roles in the Law & Order franchise: first as ADA Jessica Rossi in the short-lived series Conviction (2006), then back over to Law & Order as Detective Nina Cassaday.
- Jeffrey Donovan played the character of Eddie Nicodos in the Season 6 episode Jeopardy (1995) and Jacob Reese in the Season 17 episode Good Faith (2007). When the series was revived he was cast as Detective Frank Cosgrove.
- Camryn Manheim played three different one-off characters in the history of the show before being cast as Lieutenant Kate Dixon in the revival.
- Tony Goldwyn, who plays District Attorney, Nicholas Baxter, previously played Frank Goren, Detective Robert Goren's junkie brother on 4 episodes of Law & Order: Criminal Intent (2001).
A real-life lawyer shares the name of the fictional Manhattan district attorney featured in the first ten years of Law & Order,
Adam Schiff. The real-world Schiff worked as an assistant prosecutor in the Los Angeles branch of the U.S. Attorney's Office. He eventually became a member of the House of Representatives from California, January, 2001 - present.
In the UK, Channel 5 owned the UK rights to show Law & Order on free-to-air television from Season 7, but chose to replace the opening credits with something that would hook viewers after seeing
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2000), which was shown before Law & Order. The theme chosen was "I'm Not Driving Anymore" by Rob Dougan, but only for Season 7-15, Season 16 uses "Urban Warfare" by Paul Dinletir, whilst seasons 17-20 revert to using the original US theme. As of 2014, Law & Order airs in the UK on the 5USA channel and uses the original US theme for all episodes.
When NBC asked
Dick Wolf, "What's the Bible for the show?" he responded, "The front page of the New York Post... no writers are going to do better than 'headless body found in topless bar.'"
The iconic sound that plays during interstitial cards for the series (and its spinoffs) is technically a licensed piece of music, named "The Clang." Its composer,
Mike Post (who also composed the title theme and its various reworkings across the spinoffs), receives royalties each time it's used.
For anyone unfamiliar with this particular corner of the legal world: Clerking for a judge is one of the most prestigious things a recent law school graduate can do. Clerkships at lower courts prove to be the tickets to circuit clerkships, which then feed students into the most prestigious clerkships, those at the Supreme Court. Getting a Supreme Court clerkship not only opens professional doors, it also guarantees signing bonuses in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, should the student decide to go to a law firm afterward.
Stephen Berger has portrayed three different judges throughout the series:
In
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999) it stated that not long after the original Law & Order run was canceled after Season 20 that a new District Attorney was now in charge, however when Law & Order resumed for Season 21 Jack McCoy was back as the District Attorney. Fans have speculated that the unseen District Attorney's career was ended during the massive statewide scandal involving madam Delia Wilson and her sex trafficking ring in the
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999) episode
Above Suspicion (2012) and the governor and/or Mayor brought back McCoy to replace the corrupt District Attorney and clean up the DA's office.
Each Detective has their own badge number:
- Detective Lennie Briscoe's shield number is 8220.
- Detective Ed Green's shield number is 3472.
- Detective Cyrus Lupo's shield number is 2632.
- Detective Kevin Bernard's shield number is 1954.
James Naughton was a finalist for the role of Executive Assistant District Attorney Ben Stone.
In the season 20 episode
Blackmail (2010), Lieutenant Van Buren all but orders Detectives Lupo and Bernard to shave off their beards. This was reportedly a directive that originated from
Dick Wolf's wife, complaining that she didn't like the actors' unshaven looks.
When being sold to syndication, the show is split up into packages of Seasons 1-12, 13-20, and 21-present. Most stations only buy one of the packages, not the others. Interestingly, even the show's official streaming home, Peacock, adheres to this and only has episodes from seasons 13-20 available for viewing.
Sam Waterston was cast in 1994 as Executive Assistant District Attorney because the producers felt he had "sex appeal" which was need to entice more female viewers.
Many guess stars that acted in certain NBC series have ties to HBO. Many Law & Order actors/actress starred either on HBO's
The Sopranos (1999) or
Oz (1997).
In the UK season 22 began airing on the 5USA channel March 19, 2024 which is a week after they finished airing season 21.
Despite being a popular American series, the show featured a few non-American cast members during its run:
- Jill Hennessy, who played ADA Claire Kincaid, is Canadian, and her character does have a slight accent.
- Linus Roache, who plays EADA Mike Cutter, has a very thick English accent and manages to pull off a compelling Brooklyn accent.
- Hugh Dancy, who plays ADA Nolan Price, is also English and pulls off a convincing American accent.
- It is sometimes erroneously stated that Michael Moriarty is also Canadian; in fact, he was born and raised and began his career in the United States, but later became a Canadian citizen after leaving Law & Order.
During the series original run (seasons 1-20), to maintain authenticity, the production regularly consulted retired detectives and former attorneys. Several writers also had legal backgrounds, allowing police procedures, investigations, and courtroom scenes to closely reflect real-life practice. Real police officers were frequently hired as extras for scenes involving large law enforcement operations, helping make the series one of television's most realistic crime dramas.
As of the original series finale in May 2010, there have been 19 different lineups of Senior Detective, Junior Detective, Squad Commander, Executive Assistant District Attorney, Assistant District Attorney and District Attorney ranging from 4 episodes to 49 episodes each.