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ABC Green-lights Its Sixth ShondaLand Show; This One’s Also a Legal Drama

EMILY's List Breaking Through 2016 at the Democratic National Convention
Shonda Rhimes, Queen of ABC Photo: Paul Zimmerman/Getty Images For EMILY’s List

ShondaLand’s borders are expanding once more at ABC. This time, Deadline reports, it’s green-lit an as-yet-unnamed legal drama dealing with the court system of the Southern District of New York. The series will follow newbie lawyers on both sides of the courtroom, defending and prosecuting some of the biggest, toughest cases in the country in federal court. Paul William Davies, borrowed from ShondaLand neighbor Scandal, will write and executive produce. As Deadline notes, this is the first drama sale for the production company in awhile, since Rhimes and her ShondaLand partner Betsy Beers chose to focus on pushing comedy properties this season. And while a legal drama is nothing new at ABC or anywhere else, the SDNY federal court has a storied history: It was, for example, the site of many wrongful death cases for lives lost in the Titanic disaster, and more recently the court heard from plaintiffs and defendants in the “Deflategate” scandal.

ABC Green-lights Its Sixth ShondaLand Show