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After what has seemed like an unusually long wait, Suits LA has finally arrived on our screens — bringing with it exactly as much glitz, glamour, and quasi-legal shenanigans that anyone could have wanted from a West Coast-based spin-off of an outrageously successful (yet cancelled, years ago) legal drama that inexplicably stars a former Green Arrow. But here’s the problem; it’s a brand new show, and there’s only one episode a week. What are you supposed to do while waiting for your next fix? Friends, I have the answer. For your consideration, some classic courtroom TV shows from the vaults of television past.

This is For Your Consideration, in which we try to come to terms with the inescapable fact that, honestly, there’s too much out there to have time to watch, read, or hear everything — by making some suggestions about things that you might have overlooked but would enjoy, anyway. Think of it as recommendations from a well-meaning friend.

L.A. Law (1986-1994): Better than Suits, perhaps because they were wearing better suits

If ever there was a spiritual ancestor to Suits LA, it wouldn’t be the original Suits — it would be Steven Bochco and Terry Louise Fisher’s absolutely iconic 1980s legal eagle series, which set the bar for every single legal drama that followed almost impossibly high. L.A. Law is an embarrassment of riches in retrospect: a soapy, glossy reimagining of the legal drama format that had, prior to this point, been weighed down with a self-seriousness and fidelity to the law that occasionally got in the way of viewing pleasure. Here, it’s all about what look good, what plays well, realism be damned. (Just wait until you discover how the show chose to write out one of its recurring villains when everyone collectively decided they’d had enough of her.)

Streaming on: Hulu

Boston Legal (2004-2008): What if Suits was out of its mind on laughing gas the entire time?

In theory, Boston Legal is a sequel to (and continuation of) David E. Kelley’s earlier legal series, The Practice; indeed, multiple characters moved directly from one show to another, with Boston Legal beginning the same year that The Practice ended. However, if The Practice was originally intended as a show that would focus on the actual legal proceedings of a trial, in response what Kelley had considered a far-too-showbiz take in L.A. Law, then Boston Legal was a wild swing in the other direction: a massively broad comedy drama that leaned heavily on the interpersonal relations between its stars and just as much on ripped from the headline storylines played for laughs on a regular basis. Somehow, despite itself, that worked out surprisingly well — maybe because the core cast included James Spader, Candice Bergen, and a William Shatner who was, genuinely, perhaps never better. (Yes, I’m even including Star Trek in that.)

Streaming on: Hulu

The Good Wife (2009-2016): Suits, but soapier, glossier, and more beloved by critics (at least during its first run)

Running essentially concurrently with the original Suits (although it started a couple of years earlier), The Good Wife is a show that has learned from both of the above series in terms of balancing the personal and the professional, honing the idea of a courtroom soap into a fine art. It helps that the show has an absolutely killer cast — Julianna Marguiles, Archie Panjabi, Josh Charles, and the incomparable Christine Baranski — and leaned more heavily into the procedural aspect of the lawsuits than had been the fashion of the time, allowing it to seem fresh and more serious when compared to everything else around it. The show was a critical darling, winning five Emmys and a Television Critics Association award during its run, and has proven to be a surprisingly long-lived phenomenon; even though it ended in 2016, it was immediately followed by a spin-off called The Good Fight, and later a second spin-off, the fan-favorite CBS series Elsbeth. We’re keeping our fingers crossed for news of The Good Wife: LA any moment now.

Streaming on: Paramount+