The fourth season of The Lincoln Lawyer opens with Mickey Haller being arrested for the murder of Sam Scales, one of his long-time clients.

Haller knows he didn’t kill Sam.

The problem, as every defence lawyer knows, is that knowing you are innocent and proving you are innocent are two very different things. This season is based on Michael Connelly’s The Law of Innocence, and I think it may be the strongest season of the series so far.

One line from the season stayed with me.

Haller explains that a murder case is like a tree. Pieces of evidence, witnesses and testimony help the tree grow. The prosecutor’s job is to grow that tree. The defence lawyer’s job is to take an axe to it until the jury can no longer be certain it should be standing.

It’s a wonderful way to describe the adversarial legal system.

One thing The Lincoln Lawyer has consistently done well is avoid turning prosecutors into villains. Dana Berg known in legal circles as “Death Row Dana” is no exception.

As viewers, we know Haller is innocent. Dana doesn’t.

She sees a dead body in the trunk of Haller’s car. She has bullets recovered from his garage. From her perspective, this is exactly the case she is supposed to prosecute. If she didn’t try her hardest to convict him, she wouldn’t be doing her job.

Constance Zimmer is excellent as Dana Berg. We know fairly early that she has lost cases to Haller, and hates his guts. So there are times when the prosecutor seems to be malicious or vindictive. But I thought that if I am in the same position, with what appeared to be an open and shut case, wouldn’t I also try to get a conviction. Imagine the story from the first season. The prosecutor is convinced that Trevor Elliott is the murderer, and Haller gets him to walk. How is this different?

That makes the courtroom battle far more interesting because neither side is incompetent or corrupt. They’re simply doing different jobs.

The same goes for Judge Lionel Stone, portrayed by a remarkable Scott Lawrence. Throughout the season he tries to balance the letter of the law with the pursuit of truth. At one point he remarks to Haller, “It’s legally correct, but the morality of this is questionable.”

That line probably describes half the difficult decisions lawyers have to make.

For the first half of the season, Haller’s own team is on the back foot.

Lorna has only just become an attorney, and suddenly she finds herself defending her boss in a murder trial where almost everything points towards him. Becki Newton continues to make Lorna one of the most likeable characters in the series. You genuinely feel the weight she is carrying.

The balance shifts when Maggie McPherson joins the defence table.

As a prosecutor herself, Maggie knows exactly how Dana thinks, and from that point onwards the courtroom becomes a fascinating game of move and countermove. It’s one of the strongest stretches of the season.

Two supporting characters deserve a special mention.

The first is David “Legal” Siegel, played by Elliott Gould. Legal has always been Haller’s mentor, and even in old age he still sees the law several moves ahead of everyone else. When Lorna seeks his advice, he reminds us that experience often matters as much as intellect. His death later in the season genuinely felt like losing an old friend.

The second is Elena Haller, Mickey’s mother, played by Angélica María.

In a season where almost everyone is worried about Mickey, she refuses to be. I’m still not sure whether that’s because she’s insensitive to the danger he’s in or because she simply has absolute faith that her son will find a way through it. I prefer the second interpretation.

Afterwards, I discovered that Angélica María is in her eighties. You certainly wouldn’t guess it from her screen presence.

As always, the final episode sets up the next season. This time, Mickey meets his sister.

Season 5 has already been announced, and if you’ve read Michael Connelly’s novels, you’ll probably have an idea where that relationship is heading. I’m looking forward to seeing how the series handles it.

What I’ve enjoyed most about The Lincoln Lawyer is that it treats the law as a profession rather than a morality play. The defence lawyer, the prosecutor and the judge aren’t enemies. They’re professionals with different responsibilities, each trying to fulfil them as honestly as they can. But the turf wars that arise when people become convinced that they are right are never far away either. This season, Haller finds himself on one side of that divide and the sheriff’s department on the other.

That makes the courtroom far more compelling than a simple battle between good and evil.

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