Law & Order Prosecutors: Conviction Rates

How often each Law & Order prosecutor wins, counted case by case. Across 547 episodes, 538 prosecutions end in a guilty verdict, a plea deal, an acquittal or a hung jury, and the prosecution wins 472 of them (88%).

• Jack McCoy
• Ben Stone
• Nolan Price
• Michael Cutter

First chair

Cases each prosecutor leads, at trial or in plea talks. The rate is guilty verdicts and plea deals as a share of every case that ends in a verdict, a plea or a hung jury.

Also leading a case or two, counted in the total: Claire Kincaid (2 of 2), Nicholas Baxter (2 of 2), Samantha Maroun (2 of 2), Abbie Carmichael (1 of 1), Jamie Ross (1 of 1) and Serena Southerlyn (1 of 1).

Second chair

Cases each prosecutor works alongside the lead prosecutor, as credited in the episode (five or more).

How the cases are counted

• Each defendant the episode’s trial is about counts once, by how the case ends on screen. If a verdict is overturned and the defendant then pleads guilty, the plea counts.
• A conviction on any charge, including a lesser one, counts as a guilty verdict. A jury’s verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity counts as an acquittal; an insanity disposition the prosecution agrees to is not counted.
• Cases that are dropped, dismissed, end in a mistrial for another reason or are still open when the episode ends are listed but not counted, and neither are defendants who die before a verdict.
• Accomplices who plead guilty in exchange for testimony against the main defendant are not counted.
• The first chair is the prosecutor who leads the case; every other assistant prosecutor credited in the episode is second chair. The head of the office is credited only for a case they try in person.

Outcomes are taken from each episode’s recap on this site. How these summaries are written.