Q&A With ‘Raising the Bar’ Creator, a Former Bronx Public Defender

Law in Popular Culture

Q&A With ‘Raising the Bar’ Creator, a Former Bronx Public Defender

Posted Aug 29, 2008, 01:11 pm CST
By Stephanie Francis Ward

Photo by Art Streiber

David Feige has come a long way from his days as a New York City public defender. But the Hollywood wunderkind seems to have a hard time leaving it all behind.

All you need to do is ask, and he’ll tell you that the criminal defense system is broken and members of his former profession are never portrayed accurately.

Feige is hoping the public will finally get the real picture with his new television drama, called Raising the Bar.

The series was inspired by Feige’s first-person account of life on the front lines in the Bronx PD’s office, Indefensible, which was published in 2006 by Little, Brown & Co.

The book caught the attention of none other than television producer Steven Bochco, and the two teamed up to write the pilot episode. TNT picked up the show for its prime-time schedule this fall.

What made you want to do the show?

I had been a public defender for a long time, and one of the things that became abundantly clear to me is that the mass media really have no clue why we do what we do. You’re constantly being portrayed as shambling, poorly dressed schlubs who don’t particularly like their clients and basically just phone it in. It’s appalling.

Read more of the Q&A and see a preview of the show in the September issue of the ABA Journal online.

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