I never knew property law could be so exciting. I know everybody loves the Law and Order series, and all the spin-offs, because they focus on exciting lawyers and their exciting careers, where they catch thrilling bad guys sometimes but mostly just investigate in a cinematic way, and then appear in court to give scintillating testimonies.
I’ve seen them all, and I think they’re great evening TV, but I was super dubious about the Australian-made Law and Order: Property Law Division. I was especially dubious about how they said that they were reigning back a lot of the overly-dramatic representation and trying to portray a more grounded, realistic tone for their series.
But you know…it just works. The series is currently following a bunch of property law firms operating in Melbourne and their day-to-day careers, as they take on the hottest property law cases in the entire city, and even beyond. Of course there’s a little bit of character drama, but they’ve kept it to a minimum as promised. Cassandra broke Gary’s favourite Bar-Stucks mug, and Vera had to call in Jonathan for the third time in a single day because she couldn’t log into her email, and the problem was the same every single time. That caused a bit of frustration, but mostly the show is focused on property law, lawyers who deal with property, and it sticks to its focus quite well.
Of course, there’s a little bit of extra melodrama from them competing with other commercial law firms, but that’s just how it works in real life. The life of a lawyer is one of conflict and competition, even if it’s just competition over who gets to represent the owner of a building in a case over whether a fire exit was built in an unsafe location. Such is how things work for REAL commercial law firm near Melbourne in real life, so it’s acceptable drama.
Can’t wait for the big fire exit case though. This is the tightest, most action-packed commercial property law TV story ever!
-Mira