While The Lincoln Lawyer season 3 follows the main events of Michael Connelly’s The Gods of Guilt, the Netflix show takes some artistic liberties, changing elements to benefit the character arcs and overall narrative. The legal drama continues following Mickey Haller’s life as a defense attorney, picking up where The Lincoln Lawyer season 2 ended with the murder of his former client Gloria Dayton, aka Glory Days. Mickey faces his biggest challenge in a legal case yet because of his personal and professional connection to the victim.

The trial of Julian La Cosse for the murder of Glory Days is outlined in the fifth book of Michael Connelly’s The Lincoln Lawyer book series. Like past seasons, the Netflix adaptation maintains the biggest parts of the story. However, the showrunners had to pick and choose other parts of the story to include because it’s hard to fit a 400-page book into ten episodes. This is especially true with Connelly’s books, which pack action and character development into every page. Luckily, each change in The Lincoln Lawyer season 3 benefitted the overall story.

7The Lincoln Lawyer Removes The Drunk Driving Accident Outlined In The Gods Of Guilt

Mickey Feels Guilt Over Getting A Person Out Of A DUI Charge

At the end of The Fifth Witness, which The Lincoln Lawyer season 2 adapts, Mickey Haller makes the decision to switch sides of the law and run for the position of District Attorney. As an elected position, he has to run a campaign to win the position. Unfortunately, The Gods of Guilt reveals a tragic event that prevents him from getting the job and sends his mental state and family spiraling.

Mickey previously represented a woman arrested on a DUI charge, getting her off without any real consequences. The woman starts driving under the influence again, causing a car crash in which a woman and her daughter die. This single event derails everything for him. He returns to defense attorney work, losing his bid for the DA job. He blames himself for enabling this woman’s actions. Additionally, the incident is the first thing that drives a wedge between Mickey, Maggie, and Hayley.

The choice to leave out the drinking-and-driving accident benefits The Lincoln Lawyer because it paints Mickey in a less bad light. Fans of the show might have felt less empathy towards him if he had been tangentially involved in an aggravated vehicular manslaughter charge. At least with Eddie and Glory Days, he didn’t have a direct hand in what happened to them.

6Izzy And Andy Play A Big Role In The Lincoln Lawyer Season 3

Izzy Letts And Andy Freeman Were Created For The Netflix Series

Two of the main characters of The Lincoln Lawyer season 3 are Izzy Letts and Andrea “Andy” Freeman. Izzy spends the season trying to figure out what she really wants to pursue with her career. She tries to get back into professional dance, but she figures out that the career path would put her at risk of going back into active addiction. By the end, she decides to keep her studio, renting it out and occasionally teaching while also working as Mickey’s office manager.

Andy also takes a more active role this season, starting a casual romantic and sexual relationship with Mickey Haller. This provides Mickey with an intimate confidant as he tries to work through his emotions surrounding the Glory Days case. Interestingly, neither Izzy nor Andy exist in Michael Connelly’s The Lincoln Lawyer books. The showrunners and writers created the characters for the Netflix show to fill necessary roles in Mickey’s life, and they’ve developed into fully-fleshed out individuals who are easy to empathize with. As such, their storylines in The Lincoln Lawyer season 3 don’t exist in The Gods of Guilt.

5Mickey Doesn’t Get Investigated By The California Bar

Mickey Could’ve Gotten Disbarred For The Forged Waiver

At the end of The Lincoln Lawyer season 3, Mickey forges a waiver, allowing him to continue Julian La Cosse’s trial without him present, an event that also happens in The Gods of Guilt. The veracity of the signature is brought into question in both versions of the story; however, it’s resolved in an entirely different way. In The Gods of Guilt, the questionability of the waiver is brought to the California Bar Association, which investigates whether Mickey forged Julian’s signature. The issue is eventually dropped because Julian lies and says that he signed the waiver.

However, in The Lincoln Lawyer, Julian’s life partner, David Lyons, plays a part in forging the signature in the TV show. He tells Mickey to do what he has to keep the trial going, allowing him into the hospital room. David then agrees to testify on the matter, confirming that the signature came from Julian.

It’s unclear whether David knew that to be a lie at the time, but it seems probable, since Julian hadn’t been conscious yet when Mickey came to the hospital to get the waiver signature. He also seems to be the kind of person to bend the law to take care of his love. Regardless, Judge Regina Turner accepts the waiver with David’s testimony, and Mickey is never investigated by the bar.

4Lorna Becomes A Lawyer Instead Of Staying An Office Manager

Lorna’s Law Degree And License Doesn’t Happen In The Gods Of Guilt

While Lorna is an essential character in The Gods of Guilt and the rest of Michael Connelly’s The Lincoln Lawyer novels, she plays a very different role in the books. The character is Miickey’s ex-wife and an office manager. She has some knowledge of the law and helps organize and manage cases, but she’s not a lawyer or paralegal. Instead, a character named Jennifer “Bullocks” Aronson is Mickey’s law associate, representing her own clients and helping Mickey with his cases.

In her new job, Lorna becomes more self-assured and proud of her accomplishments, a new aspect of her personality.

Rather than introducing a new character into the mix, Ted Humphrey explained to TV Insider that they thought it was more beneficial to combine Lorna and Jennifer in The Lincoln Lawyer season 3, giving Becki Newton a more prominent role in the story. In her new job, Lorna becomes more self-assured and proud of her accomplishments, a new aspect of her personality. It will also benefit the potential narrative for The Lincoln Lawyer season 4 since she can have a more active role in Mickey’s legal defense.

3Mickey Doesn’t Start Abusing Alcohol In The Lincoln Lawyer

Mickey Relapses Into Active Addiction During The Gods Of Guilt

The Lincoln Lawyer is by no means a light TV show, touching on issues like addiction recovery, familial strain, police corruption, and death by suicide. However, season 3 could have been much darker if the co-showrunners Ted Humphrey and Dailyn Rodriguez followed one particularly upsetting part of The Gods of Guilt. After the failed run for the DA position and the drunk driving accident that killed two people, Mickey falls back into active addiction. He begins drinking heavily to the point that it’s negatively impacting all aspects of his life. Another lawyer even tells Mickey he needs to lay off alcohol.

This storyline bothered many readers because it drastically shifted from the previous book, and Michael Connelly didn’t directly address that he relapsed into active addiction. If the show included Mickey abusing alcohol, a heaviness would have enveloped the entire plot, distracting from the Glory Days murder case. Luckily, they didn’t explore this aspect of the book. Even after Neil Bishop dies by suicide, Lorna and Izzy only express a concern that Mickey might turn to substances again, rather than confirming that he does.

2Mickey’s Guilt Manifests In A Physical Way In The Netflix Series

The Defense Attorney Has Full Blown Hallucinations

Throughout The Gods of Guilt, Glory Days’ death negatively impacts Mickey Haller’s mental health. Mickey deals with overwhelming guilt because he believes that he’s responsible for hurting or killing everyone around him. This feeling is intensified by his DUI client killing two people in a drunk driving accident. His feeling only gets worse after Earl, who’s called Eddie in the show, gets killed while driving Mickey. While his emotions are palpable in the writing, Netflix’s The Lincoln Lawyer takes this to a whole other level.

Rather than feeling the guilt internally, it manifests in the way of visible and audible hallucinations that he interacts with. In the second half of the third season, Mickey has conversations with Glory Days, Eddie, and his father about his failing as a lawyer. It’s hard to watch the emotional impact of these scenes.

Luckily, there’s a much sweeter moment at the end of The Lincoln Lawyer season 3, where he sees Glory Days smiling at him at the bar instead of angry and distraught. This shows that the fight against the DA helped him find peace in his ability to impact the lives of those around him positively.

1Agent De Marco Isn’t In The Courthouse When Neil Bishop Dies By Suicide

Agent De Marco Gets Away Because Of A DEA Lawyer

In both The Lincoln Lawyer and Gods of Guilt, Agent De Marco manages to escape legal consequences for his crime, only to face vigilante justice at the hands of Hector Moya. However, the location of De Marco during Neil Bishop’s testimony is different in the source material and the Netflix adaptation. In Gods of Guilt, he’s directly in the courtroom and stays there until the commotion, slipping out undetected. However, Agent De Marco doesn’t appear in court when Neil Bishop is on the stand in The Lincoln Lawyer, having a DEA lawyer in the room instead.

Suicide is never the answer. If you or someone you love is experiencing suicidal ideation, please call 988 or visit 988Lifeline.org (US) or FindAHelpline.com (international).

The change in Agent De Marco’s location reaffirms The Lincoln Lawyer season 3’s core message that the system is failing victims. The Drug Enforcement Administration protects the corrupt agent until they have no other choice but to acknowledge his wrongdoing. This is further displayed at the end of The Lincoln Lawyer season 3 by the fact that they don’t seem to look for Agent De Marco after Bishop exposes him – a point that Mickey brings up while going after the District Attorney to get compensation for Julian.