Dumb Justice

   

Dumb Justice
Genre	Sitcom Mockumentary Legal drama Comedy-drama
Created by	Vic Schoonover Jessie Alacantara
Starring	Jared Savage Electra Kwan Justin Bathe Oscar Kelley Elizabeth Zimmer Danielle Shakman Hunter Schneider Kim Ehrmantraut
Theme music composer	Tony Kim
Country of origin	Sierra
Original language(s)	English
No. of seasons	6
No. of episodes	112
Production
Executive producer(s)	Lance Einhorn Henry Wu Dominic Sanchez Fred Garver Hailey Williams
Producer(s)	Jeffrey Stone Fabio Diaz Ricky Dershowitz
Camera setup	Single camera
Running time	22–42 minutes
Production company(s)	Take Off Productions Symphonify Entertainment Revolving Door Studios Tokki Television
Distributor	Tokki Television Distribution
Release
Original network	Tokki
Picture format	1080i (16:9 HDTV)
Audio format	Milton Digital
Original release	January 12, 2009 (2009-01-12) – March 14, 2016 (2016-03-14)

Dumb Justice is a Sierran legal comedy-drama mockumentary sitcom television series created by Vic Schoonover and Jessie Alacantara. The series aired for 112 episodes with six seasons, premiering on Tokki on January 12, 2009 and ending on March 14, 2016. The series stars Jared Savage as Bruce Springer, an inexperienced, naïve trial lawyer working for a branch office of Bates, Doss, Simpson & Mitchells (BDS&M), a medium-sized Sierran law firm, in the city of Oakalona. The ensemble and supporting cast features Electra Kwan as Krissy Liu, Justin Bathe as Gabe Peterson, Oscar Kelley as Kent Church, Elizabeth Zimmer as Teeny Cloverfield, Danielle Shakman as Gigi DeAngelo, Hunter Schneider as David Schwartz, Fred Garver as Eugene McDaniels, and Hailey Williams as Bethany Campbell. The series follows the inner workings and day-to-day lives of the dysfunctional, mismanaged BDS&M firm, which is constantly on the verge of bankruptcy due to malpractice cases.

Dumb Justice received mixed reviews during its first season. In subsequent seasons, the series received critical acclaim as the characters underwent significant character development and the writing, tone, and pace was changed considerably from the first season. The four subsequent seasons have been featured on numerous critics' year-end top TV series list and have won a number of accolades and awards. The last and sixth season was criticized for its decline in quality, including its widely panned ending. A seventh season was planned but was cancelled after sexual abuse allegations were made against the show's main star, Jared Savage. In 2021, the possibility of a reboot or spin-off has been considered by Tokki executives. In 2021, Tokki announced it was partnering with Webbox on producing an original sequel series exclusively on the streaming service.

Plot

The first season introduces Bruce Springer, a recent graduate from Mulholland University who passed the San Joaquin Provincial Bar and was accepted into the Federal Bar. After being rejected by his dream law firm in San Francisco City, Springer finds employment at the Oakalona branch for Bates, Doss, Simpson & Mitchells, a medium-sized law firm he only knew about from their over-the-top advertisements. Springer becomes acquainted with his coworkers, including Krissy Liu, a family lawyer who has made residence outside of the law firm's parking lot. He learns that the law firm is struggling financially as it faces a backlog of attorney malpractice lawsuits against the firm. During his first case with the firm, Springer's legal research is impeded when Gabe Peterson neglects to keep the law firm's records safe, resulting in a robbery by unknown assailants. Springer's client, a local Ussurian business owner, flees the country for Ussuria amid charges of criminal fraud and labor law violations, forcing Springer to track him down to appear in court. Meanwhile, Teeny Cloverfield, one of the firm's labor lawyers, focuses more attention on embezzling funds from the firm's finances and using them to speculate in the risky Eastern West African market. With the help of Bethany Campbell, the firm's tax attorney, Cloverfield turns to money laundering to cover her income from her foreign-based child labor business. Cloverfield and Campbell uses some of their illegal funds to keep the firm afloat at the BDS&M's partners' behest. Springer manages to defend his client successfully in court, but his client faces civil litigation afterwards. Gigi DeAngelo takes over but her court performance casts doubt on the client's case, resulting in a multi-million dollar settlement in favor of the plaintiffs, further damaging the firm's reputation and financial prospects.

Cast and characters

Jared Savage plays the lead character Bruce Springer

The principal cast starting in season one included:

• Jared Savage as Bruce Springer – an inexperienced, naïve trial associate lawyer who recently graduated from Mulholland University with a blind sense of optimism and calling for justice; he plans to one day become Chief Justice of Sierra
• Electra Kwan as Krissy Liu – a managing lawyer for the firm's family law division with a neurotic personality and suffers from heavy alcoholism. She has undergone three divorces and is financially insecure because she pays alimony and child support to her three ex-husbands
• Justin Bathe as Gabe Peterson – a cynical, lazy, passive-aggressive probate lawyer whose modus operandi is to do as little work as possible in order to pursue other hobbies including competitive hot dog eating, extreme unicycling, skinny-dipping, and cross-dressing
• Oscar Kelley as Kent Church – an overconfident, condescending criminal defense attorney who is considered the "star" attorney by the firm's partners despite barely passing the provincial bar exam and knowing nearly nothing about law. Church relies instead on his team of paralegals and the janitor to do his work
• Elizabeth Zimmer as Teeny Cloverfield – a psychopathic labor lawyer whose sense of justice is gravely distorted and earns passive income from managing "sweatshop co-operatives" consisting of former child soldiers in West Africa as a side-job. She is also very promiscuous and often tries to seduce her clients, coworkers, and even the judges
• Danielle Shakman as Gigi DeAngelo – a deeply insecure, unassertive civil litigation lawyer who always blunders her cross-examinations and closings but is deeply knowledgeable in law and one of the most competent attorneys at the firm
• Hunter Schneider as David Schwartz – a sleazy, street smart accident and personal injury lawyer who obtained his position in the firm by chance at a swap meet. Schwartz is an ambulance chaser who frequently runs into ethical trouble and unwittingly insults or offends his clients and coworkers
• Fred Garver as Eugene McDaniels – one of the firm's overworked legal secretaries who aspired to become an attorney but gave up after failing San Joaquin's baby bar "twenty-two consecutive times". Despite failing multiple times, McDaniels is highly knowledgeable in law and accounting, as well as interpretative dancing
• Hailey Williams as Bethany Campbell – a highly eccentric and unpredictable tax attorney who suffers from multiple personality disorder, with each personality (according to her) being recognized as "wards of the state", with one of them evading the state for tax fraud. Campbell believes in conspiracy theories and is constantly warning the others about the impending doom of the Earth by subterranean, mutant guinea pigs from the United People's Committees

Other recurring characters were introduced or developed over the course of the series:

• Ryan Humphreys as Johnny Bates – the CEO of BDS&M and one of the partners in the firm. Bates is one of the top-ranking attorneys in the province of San Joaquin yet is a terrible businessman, losing millions of dollars to an email fraud from Tajikistan, and is seemingly oblivious towards the dysfunction in his firm
• Guy Hickenlooper as Richard Doss – one of the partners at BDS&M who is a brilliant criminal defense attorney. He is a perfectionist who constantly micromanages the firm's operations whose borderline obsessive-compulsiveness is played for laughs. He is the straight man and foil to Bates, as well as the main cast
• Samuel Warren as Winston Simpson – one of the partners at BDS&M who is a civil litigation attorney and is overbearingly positive and unnaturally friendly, even offering to sleep with the firm's rivals based on his extreme interpretation of "turn the other cheek". His exceptional kindness leads to the firm losing a lot of money as Simpson settles cases out of court for much lower out of generosity for the opposing counsel's client
• Frank Dresden as Hank Mitchells – a distant, mysterious partner at BDS&M who spends most of his time as an off-screen character, capable of instilling fear into all of the associates, as well as Mitchells' fellow partners at the mere mention of his name. Onscreen, he is tyrannical in leadership with an abrasive, selfish personality, Mitchells was the former CEO of BDS&M who was "forced into law" after dropping out of business school

Episodes

Seasons of Dumb Justice

Season		Episodes		Originally aired		Rank	Viewers (millions)
				First aired	Last aired
	1	8		January 12, 2009 (2009-01-12)	March 9, 2009 (2009-03-09)	111	5.3
	2	12		April 8, 2010 (2010-04-08)	May 3, 2010 (2010-05-03)	99	6.4
	3	16		June 6, 2011 (2011-06-06)	September 19, 2011 (2011-09-19)	72	10.1
	4	22		April 8, 2012 (2012-04-08)	December 16, 2012 (2012-12-16)	54	11.5
	5	27		January 12, 2014 (2014-01-12)	October 26, 2014 (2014-10-26)	40	12.8
	6	27		August 3, 2015 (2015-08-03)	March 14, 2016 (2016-03-14)	32	13.5

Broadcast

International

Die Kanzlei ("The Law Firm") is the German adaptation of Dumb Justice, which features characters loosely similar to their Sierran counterparts, and re-contextualizes the setting in Germany.