Is The Lincoln Lawyer Based on the Movie, the Books, or a True Story?
The Lincoln Lawyer is one of the most promising series on Netflix today because of how it gives a different look to the legal drama genre that has always had a pretty huge following. Of course, those who have seen a lot of legal drama would know that a movie called The Lincoln Lawyer was also produced more than a decade ago and that there is a book with the same title. So, is The Lincoln Lawyer series based on the movie, a book, or a true story?
Netflix’s The Lincoln Lawyer is actually an adaptation of Michael Connelly’s second book of The Lincoln Lawyer series. This book is entitled The Brass Verdict. It is not based on the 2011 movie of the same title, nor is it connected to it. In fact, The Lincoln Lawyer movie is based on Connelly’s first book.
While The Lincoln Lawyer series may be a live-action adaptation of Connelly’s The Brass Verdict, which is the sequel to The Lincoln Lawyer book, the show acts as if the events of the first book never happened so that fans won’t think that it is the sequel to the 2011 movie. With that said, let’s look at what we know about The Lincoln Lawyer series and what it is based on.
Is The Lincoln Lawyer Series Based On The Movie?
One of the most interesting series that you can watch on Netflix today is The Lincoln Lawyer, which is a show that follows the story of a lawyer named Mickey Haller, who is known to the public as the Lincoln lawyer because he is often seen in a Lincoln car. This is a legal drama series that allows people to understand what goes into the mind of a successful defense lawyer like Haller and what his motivations are.
For those who have been watching legal drama movies and shows for a long time, you might be familiar with the title of The Lincoln Lawyer series. That’s because this is the very same title of a 2011 movie starring Matthew McConaughey and Marisa Tomei. So, does that mean that the series version of The Lincoln Lawyer is based on the movie? Or is it a sequel?
The Lincoln Lawyer series is neither based on the movie of the same title nor is it a sequel to it. In fact, The Lincoln Lawyer is entirely different compared to the movie in terms of the overall premise of the series, although they are based on the same source material.
However, the series version of The Lincoln Lawyer is not a remake of the movie because they follow different storylines. The 2011 movie of The Lincoln Lawyer follows the story of Mickey Haller, who is a lawyer for a defendant named Louis Roulet, who is charged with assaulting a sex worker. And he connects the events of this case to one of his past cases involving an innocent man named Jesus Menendez, who was sent to prison for life for a crime that he didn’t commit.
On the other hand, The Lincoln Lawyer series follows an entirely different storyline that may have a few similarities with the 2011 movie but is still quite different. In fact, the series version is more faithful to the source material that the movie also used.
Is The Lincoln Lawyer Series Based On The Books?
As mentioned, The Lincoln Lawyer is not based on the 2011 movie of the same name. This series isn’t even a remake or a sequel to it because it is an entirely rebooted version of the story of The Lincoln Lawyer. And what fans should know is that both the series and the 2011 movie used the same source materials, which are the novels written by Michael Connelly.
What makes the series version of The Lincoln Lawyer different from the movie version is the fact that the film was based on the events of the first book of The Lincoln Lawyer series, which is aptly entitled The Lincoln Lawyer. However, the series version of The Lincoln Lawyer is based on the second book of The Lincoln Lawyer series, which is entitled The Brass Verdict.
Although there are some changes between The Lincoln Lawyer series and The Brass Verdict, as the series version modernizes the events of the book to fit with the current technological era, the characters and the events are almost the same as the ones in the book.
It is also worth noting that the series version of The Lincoln Lawyer was written and created to be entirely different from the 2011 movie of the same title. And this can be seen in the fact that the events of the first book were entirely erased from the events of the series.
In the first book, which the 2011 movie used as its source material, Mickey Haller was shot at the end. It was this event that caused him to become addicted to painkillers, which cost him to become inactive in the legal profession, considering that he needed to rehabilitate himself.
However, the series version of The Lincoln Lawyer totally erases the events of the first book while still connecting it to the events involving Jesus Menendez. Instead of getting shot, Haller got in a surfing accident as a result of his carelessness after he got frustrated with the fact that Menendez was sentenced to prison. It was this surfing accident that got him addicted to painkillers as the series skips the entire storyline of the first book to move on to the events of The Brass Verdict.
The most probable reason why The Lincoln Lawyer series skips to The Brass Verdict is that the writer probably didn’t want it to become a remake of the 2011 movie. And the reason why the series totally disregards the events of the first book is so that fans wouldn’t think that it is a sequel to the movie version.
As such, The Lincoln Lawyer series is totally a rebooted version of the entire novel series as it doesn’t include the events of the 2011 movie in its timeline while also adding different elements that allow the series to fit in with the modern times.
Is The Lincoln Lawyer Series Based On A True Story?
We have established that The Lincoln Lawyer is based entirely on the book series written by Michael Connelly. But are the books based on a true story?
The books written by Connelly are entirely fictional. That means that he didn’t base his books on a real-life Mickey Haller or a lawyer who resembles the same kind of life that his fictional character lived. Everything about The Lincoln Lawyer novel series is fictional.
Considering that the live-action series version of The Lincoln Lawyer is based on the books written by Michael Connelly, it also follows that the events of the Netflix original series are not based on real-life events.
There might be some cases that may have parallels with the events of The Lincoln Lawyer. However, those are purely coincidental because the series only follows what Connelly has written in his books.
