Law & Order has toured the world. Translated into some 100 languages, it is the longest-running legal series in American television history, and even after 20 years on the air, from 1990 to 2010, and five spin-off series, it still serves as a benchmark for audiences and other legal dramas. Its creator, Dick Wolf, deliberately focused the 456 episodes on stories inspired by news stories and issues underlying the legal debate of the day. The result is a veritable judicial training course for the tele-citizen, dealing with fundamental questions of justice as well as the more technical subjects of procedure, ethics, career management and the relationship between police and prosecutors, and between state and federal law.
