Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Dustin Rowles | TV | February 10, 2026
Without getting too deeply into the substance of season four of The Lincoln Lawyer (another solid installment in which Mickey Haller has to defend himself after being framed for murder), I can make an educated guess, based on Michael Connelly’s novels, about where the newly introduced character will fit into season five of The Lincoln Lawyer.
Minor spoilers: At the tail end of season four, in a setup for the already renewed fifth season, Mickey Haller meets a woman played by Cobie Smulders (How I Met Your Mother) who claims to be his sister. She also saves him from getting shot by an Armenian gangster out for revenge.
We’re not given much beyond that, but we do know from Connelly’s novels that Mickey does, in fact, have a half-sister, Jennifer. They share the same father. Jennifer is introduced in the second novel, The Brass Verdict, which otherwise forms the basis for the first season of the Netflix series. Obviously, they left Jennifer out of that season, even though she has a recurring role throughout the books. She’s also a lawyer.
My guess, however, is that Jennifer Haller is being introduced to replace the Dana Berg character from Connelly’s most recent novel, The Proving Ground. (Notably, the name of the prosecutor in season four, Dana Berg, is lifted from a completely different character in that novel: a former FBI analyst turned data specialist.) In The Proving Ground, Haller pivots into civil litigation, which feels like a natural evolution after defending himself in a criminal case.
In the book, he takes on the LAPD in a wrongful conviction suit. His client was convicted of murder and spent years in prison before being exonerated. In the case against the state, Haller works closely with a data analyst who uses AI to uncover patterns of abuse within the system. The lawsuit alleges classic Brady violations, investigators ignoring or burying alternate suspects, and a DA’s office that repeatedly relied on shaky witness testimony while suppressing information that would have helped the defense.
And it’s not just Haller’s client. Using AI, Mickey and Dana discover systemic misconduct and, ultimately, a cluster of wrongful convictions tied to the same detectives and prosecutors.
It would make perfect sense for Jennifer Haller to take on that role in the series (especially since the series has already burned the name Dana Berg). There’s also a chance she could absorb the part of the journalist from the novel, who essentially serves as an investigator and occasionally sidelines Cisco. But honestly, Cobie Smulders looks far more like a former FBI analyst than a newsroom lifer, which makes the data-driven angle feel like a clean fit.
