"The Good Lawyer" in works - lead with OCD

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After expanding one popular long-running procedural drama, The Rookie, with a planted spinoff for next season, ABC is looking to do it for another, The Good Doctor with an embedded episode. I hear the network is developing legal offshoot The Good Lawyer, from The Good Doctor executive producers/co-showrunners David Shore and Liz Friedman, Sony Pictures TV and Shore’s studio-based Shore Z Prods. ABC Signature is co-producing.

Like with the Nathan Fillion-starring The Rookie, the spinoff of the Freddie Highmore-headlined The Good Doctor will have a female lead and will be introduced as a backdoor pilot during The Good Doctor‘s upcoming sixth season, I hear. Reps for ABC and Sony TV declined comment, and deals are still being worked out.

According to sources, two characters from The Good Lawyer, the lead Joni as well as Janet, will appear in Episode 613 of The Good Doctor, with the roles currently casting.

Written by Shore and Friedman, The Good Lawyer will center on Joni, a 20-something woman who battles OCD but is a brilliant lawyer and gets to be a defense attorney for Dr. Shaun Murphy (Highmore) who finds himself in legal trouble.

Relatively new to her upscale law firm, Joni, who is funny, eager, self-aware and a bit anxious, is part of Shaun’s (Highmore) legal defense team. Despite breezing through law school and her Bar exam, Joni’s OCD symptoms take a severe toll on her personal and professional life. Living with OCD, Joni has never wanted to be treated differently and is often embarrassed of her symptoms. She is a great lawyer, using her attention to detail, compulsive over-thinking and analytical skills as a superpower, but was forced to threaten to sue the firm (for violating the Americans with Disabilities Act) when they tried to fire her because of her peculiar behaviors. The role is listed as open to all ethnicities and abilities.