TELEVISION is constantly looking for fresh ways to portray the law. Take The Innocence Project, a forthcoming series on BBC One. In the pre-screening publicity we are told that it “is about the law — but not about lawyers or the police”, it is “about young people with fire in their bellies and a healthy disregard for authority”.

The series is based on real projects at universities across England and Wales, including Bristol and Cardiff, which recruit aspiring law students to research and prepare cases for presentation to the Criminal Cases Review Commission.

None of this is revolutionary — the Free Representation Unit and other pro bono initiatives have been doing this for years. Nevertheless, the characters in The Innocence Project bound around like teenagers at a school disco, spouting chapters of Archbold almost verbatim. The show is a cross between Hollyoaks and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, with first-year law students displaying a wealth of knowledge of the law more akin to a law lord than a student.

The series is written by Oliver Brown, who describes himself as “a failed, or at least, frustrated, lawyer” who has a pessimistic view of the criminal justice system. “Ideas that used to be central to English criminal law, such as double jeopardy, the right to silence and even the premise of innocent until proven guilty, have all suffered in the past 15 years,” he argues.

The programme, to be broadcast in eight parts, takes on issues ranging from wrongful murder convictions, drug dealing, jury tampering and an attempt to prove the innocence of a woman who was executed as a witch 300 years ago. The principle of The Innocence Project is attracting a great deal of interest if the number of university lecturers at the screening is anything to go by.

AT THE other end of the legal spectrum is the vastly experienced Stephen D. Smith. His entertaining book Boozers, Ballcocks and Bail charts his work as a solicitor in Rotherham. In 1981 he established the firm Wilford Smith, which has become one of the leading practices in the area. Smith’s style is conversational in an eminently readable book about the high and low lives of this South Yorkshire town. The “ballcocks” of the title refers to the faulty fitting in the firm’s first toilet that used to dislodge and assault anyone who had the courage to use it. But the book also has some poignant tales, such as the one about Lorraine Wilson, who called on Smith to protect her from her abusive husband. Quickly, the solicitor applied for an injunction, but his client failed to turn up to court. Her violent husband had approached her the previous evening, “took a knife from his pocket and stabbed her several times”. John Wilson is still in prison, serving life for her murder.

VIKRAM CHANDRA’S violent novel Sacred Games also deals with the administration of law and order, this time in India. His central character is Sartaj Singh, a police inspector in Bombay, who sets out to break a mafia-type gang in the city. This is an intoxicating document on life in an Indian city, laying bare the prejudices of class structure within Indian society. It does not shirk from the difficult issues on the Kashmir question. Sartaj is told: “They are just different from us. We will never let them live in peace” and “instead of burning three of them I wish we had burnt a thousand”.

The Innocence Project, BBC One (to be announced); Boozers, Ballcocks and Bail by Stephen D. Smith, Neville-Douglas Publishing, £10.99; Sacred Games by Vikram Chandra, Faber & Faber, £17.99