By Dan Skip Allen 

“The Lincoln Lawyer” Season 3 ended with a cliffhanger as usual. This time around, Mickey was pulled over by an LAPD officer, and he had a dead body in the trunk of his classic royal blue Lincoln convertible car. This is where “The Lincoln Lawyer” Season 4 picks up as Mickey is now in prison for the murder a man named Sam Scales. A small-time scam artist. This season is based on Michael Connelly’s book “The Law of Innocence”. The whole cast from the previous season is back with Neve Campbell’s Maggie McPherson getting a bigger role this season. As usual, this season on Netflix is loaded with great courtroom drama.

While Mickey Haller (Miguel Garcia Rulfo) is in prison, Lorna Crane (Becki Newton) is now a full fledged Lawyer after passing the bar exam and is running the law firm in his stead. She has help from trusty PI Sisco (Angus Sampson) and secretary Izzy Letts (Jazz Raycole). They are bleeding clients, no pun intended, but they get some help from another one of Haller’s ex-wives, Maggie McPherson (Neve Campbell) , the mother of his daughter Hayley (Krista Warner) and prosecutor herself in San Diego. Together, Haller’s help, this team tries to get him out of prison by undercovering the conspiracy of why he was framed with this murder in the first place. It’s a wild ride.

Along with the established characters, there are a few new ones. As always, there are new opposing counsel in the main case and a new judge as well. Those Judge Stone and Dana Berg, aka Deathrow Dana, are played very well by Scott Lawrence and Constance Zimmer. It’s always cool to see who the new lawyers and judges are played by in each subsequent season. Also, there are a couple of FBI agents and a key witness played by Hemky Madera, Sasha Alexander, and Emmanuelle Chriqui. They are well cast in these roles. There is a key cameo, but I do not want to reveal that as the season hasn’t aired yet. That’ll be a big surprise for fans of the books and show.

There are a handful of subplots in season 4, and they revolve mostly around the supporting characters. The big one revolves around Newton’s character. She struggles to run the law firm while trying to take care of her own cases. A few leave the firm because of Rulfo’s character being in prison. It’s not good optics for their own cases. One case gets referred to her by someone who Rulfo’s character meets in prison. This turns out to be the big subplot. It’s about a man accused of killing his business partner after they had a fight earlier that day about money. The Raycole character has a romantic interest as well, and Sampson character does his usual thing hunting down leads. All of these supporting storylines support the main plot of the season very well.

A couple of technical things about this season that I liked are some flashbacks involving the title character and the deceased man, Sam Scales, played by Christopher Thorton. This was a cool trip for the directors to use so as to reacquaint the viewers with whom this character is. This is another character this trick is used on, but I can’t say as I don’t want to spoil the main plot too much in this review. A second technique used to perfection in the series is the editing.  Especially in the last few episodes. There are multiple cases going on at the same time, and Sampson’s character is also doing his job trying to help Rulfo’s character’s situation. The editing is masterfully used to get these three stories across so well on screen. I love it when a technical thing like ending is used so well.

Rulfo has grown on me over the last couple of seasons of this show. As a reader of the books, I’m a big fan of the character. He has become this character for me. Along with Titus Welliver as Harry Bosch and Maggie Q, they are now the actors I attribute as these characters from now on. I saw him in Jurassic World Rebirth over the summer of 2025, but he felt out of place there. Here, he feels perfect in the role. He has got the mannerisms and character traits I am used to in the character in a courtroom and out of one. I honestly can’t see anyone else playing this role now. At the beginning of the show, I didn’t say that. I was still stuck on Matthew McConaughey as this character. Not anymore. That excites me for future seasons of the series.

“The Lincoln Lawyer” Season 4 is another fantastic season of the show based on the phenomenal book series of the same name by great writer Michael Connelly. This show captures the ins and outs of the courtroom drama perfectly. Yes, real life courtrooms and cases aren’t as crazy as the ones depicted in the books, but who cares about that. As viewers, we want excitement not boring. Which most courtroom cases are. Film and television/streaming do a great job making these kinds of films and show interesting and the characters engaging. This series is no different. It’s a bit farcical regarding the law, courtrooms, lawyers, and judges, but it is okay in this context to be farfetched. Fans love that aspect of the show. That’s why season 4 is once again so good.

4 stars