With Netflix recently announcing that its hit legal drama “The Lincoln Lawyer” will be ending after the upcoming fifth season, plans are in place to keep the storyline going in a new spinoff.
In fact, Deadline is reporting that the series — currently in development — has zeroed in on its star, who should be very familiar to fans of beloved sitcom “How I Met Your Mother.”
Cobie Smulders Set to Star
GettyAccording to Deadline, the potential spinoff would star Cobie Smulders, reprising her “Lincoln Lawyer” role of Artemisia “Emi” Finch, half-sister of titular lawyer Mickey Haller (played by Manuel Garcia Rulfo).
A pilot script is already in the works, and is being written by “Lincoln Lawyer” exec producers Ted Humphrey, Dailyn Rodriguez and Matthew J. Lieberman.
“Chatter about an Emi spinoff started percolating even before Netflix announced in May that Season 5 of ‘The Lincoln Lawyer’ will be its last,” Deadline notes.
“Humphrey, Rodriguez and Lieberman spent some time honing in the concept and recently pitched it to Netflix, I hear. According to sources, it was well received, with the streamer buying the project in the room and commissioning a script for a quick turnaround,” Deadline continued.
A New Cast Addition
As Deadline points out, Smulders’ character was introduced at the the very end of the fourth season, which dropped in February 2026.
In the final moments of the Season 4 finale, Emi revealed herself to be the half-sister Mickey never knew about; Smulders was subsequently announced as a series regular for the final season.
“In the upcoming fifth season, Mickey Haller’s (Rulfo) world is upended when the half-sister he never knew existed, Emi (Smulders), comes to him with a plea to help free a wrongfully convicted woman, a case he takes on, determined to set right an enormous miscarriage of justice,” reads the synopsis for Season 5.
“She fills a void in Mickey’s family dynamic caused at least in part by his half-brother Harry Bosch not being in the picture due to the rights to the character being owned by Amazon,” Deadline points out. “With Mickey’s half-brother having headlined his own series on Prime Video, it is only fitting for his sister to do the same on Netflix.”
‘The Lincoln Lawyer’ Season 5
NetflixBefore the potential spinoff sees the light of day, Netflix will first focus on concluding “The Lincoln Lawyer” in its swan-song fifth season.
The upcoming season is will pick up from the shocking cliffhanger in which Eli reveals herself to Mickey as his secret sister.
As Humphrey and Rodriguez told Tudum, Smulders’ character will allow them to delve into Mickey Haller’s Bosch connection without actually introducing Harry Bosch.
“The desire to expand Mickey’s universe in terms of his family connections was always there. … We just thought it was something that maybe our show was missing,” Humphrey explained. “That all inspired inventing a character who, in some ways, is similar to what’s in the books. But it’s a completely different person, a completely different character, with a completely different backstory.”
The pair acknowledged that the fourth season’s final scene does indeed set up a world of possiblities.
“Well, first of all, the obvious question: Is she telling the truth? Is she his sister? And if so, what does that mean?” Humphrey teased. “Mickey has these very set ideas about who he is and about his past. What if there’s more to the story than he thought?”
