For my money, these are the sexiest legal partnerships on TV

The court of hotness is now in session.

The on/off legal couple in 'Aber Bergen' are smoking. Source: SBS

Erik Aber (Odd-Magnus Williamson) and Elea Bergen (Ellen Dorrit Petersen) are partners in a law firm and a recently separated couple, who struggle to live with and without each other in the Norwegian series Aber Bergen: Partners at Law.

They're also extremely easy on the eyes.

So to celebrate the new legal drama, we’re hiking up the thermostat to “objection sustained” with a list of the sexiest legal duos to ever grace our TV screens.

Alicia and Will: The Good Wife

Alicia and Will are one of the hottest small screen legal couples of all time. Source: CBS

For five seasons, viewers were hooked on the steamy on/off romance between rookie lawyer-turned-courtroom shark Alicia Florrick (Julianna Margulies) and smooth law firm partner Will Gardner (Josh Charles). Their chemistry was electric, magnetic and damn near woozy, no more so than when they were stealing a passionate snog in the elevator on the way up (!) or down (!) to Lockhart Gardner.

Alicia and Will’s romance was part of a weird love triangle with Alicia’s disgraced and estranged politician husband, Peter (Chris Noth), creating some highly-strung sexual tension. Tragically, fans never got to see if the couple could finally be together unfettered – The Good Wife’s creators, Michelle and Robert King, floored viewers with the shocking season five murder of Will, one of the most devastating deaths in recent TV history.

 

Lucca and Colin: The Good Fight

Sparring partners Lucca and Colin sizzle in the courtroom and the bedroom. Source: SBS

Picking up where Alicia and Will left off (sort of), duelling lawyers Lucca Quinn (Cush Jumbo) and Colin Morello (Justin Bartha) have been firing sparks a-plenty as they face off in the courtroom and get it on in the bedroom in The Good Wife spin-off The Good Fight (coming soon to SBS). Their courtroom frisson is palpable – Lucca taking advantage at one point with a suggestive pen-poke in her mouth to put Colin off his game.

Alan and Denny: Boston Legal

Alan and Denny had a unique connection. Source: ABC Australia

David E Kelley sure knows how to create some combustible legal duos (see the next entry, too). Boston Legal’s platonic but oddly URST-y partners in work and pleasure, Alan Shore (James Spader) and Denny Crane (William Shatner), are also sexy because there have been few hetero male TV characters as comfortable with male intimacy as these two legal titans.

They can spoon on a fishing trip, frock up as matching flamingos at a party and converse poignantly at the end of each episode while smoking a cigar on their high-rise office’s courtyard. Theirs was a true love story – they even got married in the series finale.

Ally and Billy: Ally McBeal

Ally and Billy’s timing pretty much sucked. Source: ABC Australia

Kelley’s other quirky law series served up another sort-of romance between loopy lawyer Ally McBeal (Calista Flockhart) and the sometimes-douchey Billy Thomas (Gil Bellows). The former college sweethearts had known each other since they were kids. Years later, they found themselves working together at Boston law firm Cage & Fish, and Ally and the now-married Billy would steal a much talked about kiss. What foreplay!

Their push-pull, stop-go circling was awkwardly sexy (that is before Billy went all peroxide blonde and misogynist) and no doubt had some viewers sensually frustrated if not hot and bothered. Any hope of Ally and Billy getting together was snuffed out in season three when Billy promptly died in court from a brain tumour.

 

Donna and Harvey: Suits

They may barely have touched in six seasons, but the sexual tension between these two is palpable. Source: USA Network

Talk about URST. The romantic pairing of legal secretary Donna Paulson (Sarah Rafferty) and suave lawyer Harvey Specter (Gabriel Macht) – or “Darvey” – has been more fan fantasy than actual couple to date, but there’s enough spark between these two to burn the Pearson Specter Litt offices to the ground. In six seasons, they’ve touched each other in a romantic sense only ONCE so far, holding hands. There’s also been a kiss, but only in Harvey’s steamy dream. Theirs is an unspoken kind of deal.

And it sounds like fans might be stalling on “antsy” for a while if Macht gets his way:

"The fans think that they want to see them together. My feeling is I'd like to see it left untold, where you never quite know: do they get together, do they not?” he told Harper’s Bazaar. “If they do, then it's gotta be one of the last moments of the series. I don't think you put them together and then have them break up and get back together, because then it just becomes any other TV relationship. I'd like to see them continue searching."

What a great way to drip-feed fans and keep them drooling for more. 

 

All of season 1 of Aber Bergen: Partners at Law is available at SBS On Demand: