The program ran for eight seasons, from 1986 until 1994, was nominated for more than 90 Emmy awards, and won 15 honors from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. These accolades included four years as best drama series, five acting awards, three writing honors, and one prize each for direction, art direction, and single camera editing. Frequently, L.A. Law's creative staff dominated a category. In 1989 three categories had three nominees from the program. In 1988 L.A. Law produced four of the six nominees for outstanding directing in a drama series: Kim H. Friedman, Gregory Hoblit, Sam Weisman, and Win Phelps. In the program's first season, L.A. Law re­ceived the George Foster Peabody Award for excellence, richness, and diversity of television content.

     The fictional law firm of McKenzie, Brackman, Chaney & Kuzak brought a romantic ambience to the legal, moral, and ethical battles fought inside the courtroom, in the court hallways, and behind the closed doors of attorneys' offices. The action combined several social classes: the firm's partners, associates who were employed soon after graduation, clerical workers, client , and county employees. Critics felt the law partners' lifestyles epitomized the financial and social excesses of 1980s wealthy yuppies, characterized by the show's signature license plate affixed to a Jaguar sports car.

     The characters ranged from steadfast and cautious senior panner Leland MacKenzie (played by Richad Dysart, who won the outstanding supporting actor Emmy in 1992), to arrogant Amie Becker (Corbin Bernsen). Becker's antithesis was Benny Stulwicz (Larry Drake, who won two Emmy awards as outstanding supporting actor in 1988 and 1989), a mentally challenged office assistant who wanted to successfully maintain life's simplest essentials: a job, an apartment, a commute to work, and a marriage. In the show, Stulwicz was hired by the firm after his dying mother, a long-time client, expressed concern over her son's future. Melman and Becker subsequently watched over Stulwicz, much like surrogate parents.

     Many of L.A. Law's ensemble cast members can best be described in pairs, as most characters had steady romantic partnerships with other characters portrayed in the series. Alan Rachins played Douglas Brackman Jr., as a frustrated, balding managing partner. His attempts to lead the firm were frequently thwarted by his partners. Rachins played opposite his real life spouse, Joanna Frank (Steven Bochco's sister) as his wife and then ex-wife, Sheila Brackman.

     Michael Kuzak (Harry Hamlin) often served as the focal point of the program. Kuzak was sensitive, intelligent, passionate, and sexual; his dynamic courtroom maneuvers often combined logic with pleas for compassion. Opposite Kuzak was Grace Van Owen (Susan Dey), the district attorney with an icy exterior, an empathetic side, and a libido that matched Kuzak's.

     The best-remembered couple linked tall, waspy Ann Kelsey (Jill Eikenberry) and short, Jewish, tax attorney Stuart Markowitz (Bochco's college friend Michael Tucker). Those two, married in real life before their characters wed on L.A. Law had onscreen romantic interludes that were discussed beside office water coolers nationwide.

     The strangest romantic pairing may have been that between senior partner McKenzie and Rosalind Shays (played by Diana Muldaur during the fourth and fifth season). Shays's introduction as a vicious attorney hired to boost revenues by bringing her large client list to McKenzie Brackman came in the 1989 season episode, "One Rat One Ranger." During her short stay, Shays and the recently widowed McKenzie began dating, much to the surprise of the other characters. A power struggle arose. Shays lost the battle and was removed from the law firm, then sued her former partners for sexual discrimination. The character dramatically exited the program when she stepped into a carriage-less elevator shaft and plummeted to her death in the March 21, 1991, episode, "Good to the Last Drop."

     Taking the lead from Bochco's previous NBC hit Hill Street Blues, L.A. Law cast ethnic actors in roles as attorneys. These characterizations included Alfre Woodard, who guest-starred and won an acting Emmy award for the pilot episode, Blair Underwood as Jonathan Rollins, and Jimmy Smits as the fiery but self-involved Victor Sifuentes (Smits won the 1990 supporting actor Emmy, competing against colleagues Drake and Dysart). After Smits left the show, A. Mar­tinez joined the cast as Daniel Morales.

     Other notable characters included Michele Greene as recent law school graduate and single mother Abby Perkins, Vincent Gardenia as Roxanne Melman's father Murray, Sheila Kelly as clerical worker and law student Gwen Taylor, Conchata Ferrell as entertainment attorney Susan Bloom, and Kathleen Wilhoite as Benny's childlike and slow-learning love interest Rosalie.

     For L.A. Law, Bochco brought many storytelling devices that worked well for Hill Street Blues. Instead of Hill  Street's  daily roll call that introduced  each episode's plot lines and framed each potential conflict, L.A. Law used the weekly partner's meeting for the same narrative functions. However, the shows differed greatly in one respect. Hill Street Blues had strong fe­ male characters, but men outnumbered them as the central focus of the series. With L.A. Law, women partners, associates, and secretaries often took the forefront.

     The storylines ranged from outrageous humor to thoughtful debate of social issues. Trials portrayed a gay man prosecuted for killing his lover by infecting him with AIDS, dental malpractice, a female news an­chor terminated by a TV station, date rape, polluted water poisoning a trailer park's residents, age discrim­ination, athletes on steroids, drive-by killings, and racial profiling. On the humorous side, topics included a man prosecuted for clubbing a swan to death on a golf course, ownership of a pig eaten by a python at a music video filming, male senior citizens who wreak havoc at a home when they become test subjects for a testosterone patch, and a man who communicates solely through a rude ventriloquist's dummy.

     The creative successes of the program's writers and producers engendered frequent behind-the-scenes changes, and that instability contributed to real-life drama. When Bochco contemplated leaving the series to begin a long-term development deal at ABC, he replaced Fisher with writer David E. Kelley as the program's supervising producer. In 1989 a disappointed Fisher left the show as Bochco banned her from the set. The next year, Bochco left L.A. Law and Kelley became executive producer. Kelley revitalized the fading program by adding fresh, quirky characters to his intriguing and clever dialogue and plot lines, sometimes teaming with writer/director William Finkelstein. The show remained strong until Kelley left in 1992.

     During the final season, the program's creative edge disappeared, as did the large audiences of its best years. For season five, Amanda Donohoe as CJ. Lamb, John Spencer as Tommy Mullaney, and Cecil Hoffman as Mullaney's ex-wife Zoey Clemons added color to the program.

     For network "sweeps" on May 12, 2002, and as part of NBC's 75th anniversary celebration, NBC brought the cast of L.A. Law together for a reunion movie and an episode of the network's quiz show, The Weakest Link. Finkelstein wrote the reunion, L.A. Law: The Movie, which fared poorly with both audiences and critics.