Series co-creator Terry Louise Fisher, former Deputy District Attorney for Los Angeles County, former entertainment lawyer for Twentieth Century Fox, and producer and writer for Cagney & Lacey (1981), composed a form letter she was thinking of sending to lawyers who complained about this show: "Dear So-and-so: If I were a good lawyer, I'd still be practicing law. Instead, I'm stuck in Hollywood, making ten times as much money. I hope you are as conscientious about your clients, as you are about our show. Thank you for your writing."
Series creator Steven Bochco was so taken with the show being parodied on the cover of the October 1987 issue of Mad Magazine that he staged a photo shoot with the show's actors and actresses in the exact same positions that their caricatures had appeared on the magazine's cover - with the addition of season 2 newcomer Blair Underwood (holding a "New Guy" sign) as well as Bochco himself up on the judge's seat in place of Alfred E. Neuman. Mad Magazine ran the photo in the letters page of their January 1988 issue, three months later.
Corbin Bernsen was so eager to get the role of Arnie Becker that he drove cross-country in his Jeep to track down Steven Bochco and asked him to give him another shot.
David E. Kelley was the head writer on this show. It was Kelley's feeling that this show was unrealistic, and tended to glamorize the law, and deify lawyers. Kelley created The Practice (1997), which was a grittier, less sexy, and flattering portrait of the law, as a direct response to this show.
In early 1991, a season five episode had two female characters, Abby (Michele Greene) and the newcomer C.J. (Amanda Donohoe) kissing each other. The scene was recognized as the first kiss between two women in a prime time American series, and was considered quite controversial.