Facing Kate Becomes Fairly Legal, Premieres January 20

Sarah Shahi stars in the new drama Fairly Legal / USA

On January 20, 2011, USA Network’s premiere week launches the new television series Fairly Legal (formerly called Facing Kate). Starring Sarah Shahi (best known for her work in the riveting series Life) as Kate Reed, the series focuses on an attorney given the opportunity to be a power-player when she takes a job as a mediator. Not content to chafe under a system where Kate cannot champion her clients adequately, Kate takes a position as a mediator. Thrown into a world where she can work on cases ranging from ruthless Fortune 500 company disputes to volatile divorces, Kate takes on the challenge of ensuring each party gets a legal result that they can live with. Justice is not swift, cheap or even fair when it takes years to litigate. Mediation is therefore a much more appealing alternative and Kate is the one everyone looks to in order to get a fast, affordable and fair resolution.

Joining Kate are her new boss and stepmother, Lauren Reed (Virginia Williams), and her soon-to-be ex-husband, Justin Patrick (Michael Trucco) – a top attorney at the DA’s office. With such close familial ties and entanglements both at work and at home, Kate’s life is in desperate need of a little mediating, or perhaps a better balance between her personal and professional worlds. Fortunately, she has her trusted assistant Leonardo (Baron Vaughn) to fall back upon. Fairly Legal will be fun foray into the legal realm as seen through the eyes of a woman seeking to provide justice in a way that guarantees a better outcome.

As USA Network proudly proclaims, Fairly Legal may have a new title, new date, but it has the same great characters. Fairly Legal premieres Thursday, January 20, 2011 at 10/9c. on USA Network (following Royal Pains which returns for its third season in its new timeslot).

Fairly Legal was created, written and executive produced by Michael Sardo, with Steve Stark also executive producing. The series comes from Universal Cable Productions.