'Suits' Best Lawyer Isn't Mike or Harvey — It's This Character

Aug 11, 2023

This character's combination of legal brilliance, courtroom mastery, mentorship, and leadership is the embodiment of what a lawyer should be.

While it is indisputable that Harvey (Gabriel Macht) and Mike (Patrick J. Adams), best known for their bravado winning streak, have perfected their trade and are clear front-runners for Suits' best lawyers, the show is filled with talented legal minds. Louis Litt (Rick Hoffman) is a force to reckon with, and so is Robert Zane (Wendell Pierce), and even villainous Travis Tanner (Eric Close), Sean Cahill (Neal McDonough), and Andrew Malik (Usman Alley). But there is one name that beats them all for Suits' best lawyer. From her childhood, Jessica Pearson (Gina Torres) isn't so easily labeled as a conventional girl. She defies her strict father to pursue law instead of his preferred choice of surgery, which he hoped she would follow in his footsteps. Jessica has broken barriers to be among the few women from a minority community at the pinnacle of law firm leadership in New York. She rose to the top of the food chain of New York's legal fraternity — not because it came her way, but because she deliberately worked for it. She is calm, collected, intelligent, and strategic.

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Jessica Pearson's prowess as a lawyer goes beyond the courtroom. She is a master strategist. The world of Suits is known for its fierce competition, and Jessica navigates it with remarkable finesse. She observes and prepares ahead of time for what she wants to achieve. Together with Daniel Hardman, Jessica engineered a coup at her former employer, Gordon Schmidt Van Dyke, ousting the three partners and restructuring the firm to Pearson Hardman. When Hardman had outlived his usefulness and posed a threat to her, she took him head-on and won. She knows when she is weak and needs to merge to survive, as she did with Edward Darby and Robert Zane, and when to call it quits, as with her departure from New York to Chicago in her twilight days on the show. It is her instinctive strategic planning that kept her law firm running through ruthless competition across the nine seasons of the show.

While Harvey and Mike have the longest winning streaks, with pomp to match, Jessica's one-off appearances in the courtroom were a delight to behold. Her performance alongside Rachel in the Leonard Bailey case, where she helped get him freed from prison for a crime he didn't commit, was epic. Rachel comes to Jessica with the pro bono case involving Leonard, a convicted prisoner that Rachel believes was wrongly convicted. Jessica is initially hesitant to take up the case, as her firm is in the middle of a scandal and does not have the resources to spare. However, she eventually agrees to take the case as a strategic maneuver, hoping that it will generate positive publicity for her firm. In the courtroom, Jessica "kicks ass" and not only gets Leonard acquitted but also reunites him with his daughter. In doing so, she redeems herself from her father's opposition to her becoming a lawyer by proving that she is not power-hungry and that lawyers, just like doctors, save lives.

In the corridors of justice outside the courtroom, Jessica is just as cutthroat, if not better than the other lawyers. She closes defiant and shady clients like William Sutter, whom Harvey described as "making Madoff and Forstman look like saints." Harvey's disassociating himself from Sutter and comparing him to Madoff and Forstman, the two most shady characters on Suits, hints at just how much Jessica's closing of Sutter speaks to her legal prowess.

But Jessica is not just a legal queen; she has the character and personality to match. She oozes confidence and presence whenever she enters a room and can be just as cocky as Harvey when she wants to. When Harvey dares to challenge Jessica head-on for control of the law firm, and she thwarts his plans, she tells him, "Boy, I just kicked your ass, and you didn't just want it, you begged me... Be humble." This line just shows how well-written Gina Torres's character was, and how powerful Jessica is.

Beyond her legal mind, Jessica is an astute mentor who believes in succession planning. She not only paid for Harvey's college tuition but also remains his go-to person for career advice. When Harvey is upset with Donna (Sarah Rafferty) for hiding information that almost got him jailed, he goes to Jessica for advice. Jessica asks him to think about how his life would be without Donna, and he realizes that his relationship with Donna is parallel to his with Jessica. When he thinks about how Jessica often forgives him, he also decides to forgive Donna. In this case, as throughout Suits, Jessica mentors by example.

Jessica also mentors Rachel. She paid for Rachel's law school tuition and often has meaningful conversations with her, some of which draw similarities between their own lives. In one particular instance, Jessica asks Rachel to accompany her to an event that features successful, powerful women of color whom Rachel admires. Jessica's guidance extends to personal and ethical dimensions, shaping those in her team as individuals. Her guidance is so entrenched that it goes beyond her immediate mentee. When she questions Mike on why he decided on a case without consulting her, Mike cleverly defends himself by telling her that he learned from Harvey, who in turn learned from Jessica that it was better to ask for forgiveness than for permission.

Jessica is also a masterful manager. She is better at motivating her team and keeping them united. She knows how to keep both Harvey and Louis happy, as well as the other employees, while also keeping their egos in check. As a way of motivation, she often gifts her staff with perks that are specific to their interests, like favorite concert tickets to Louis and baseball tickets to Harvey. When her firm is experiencing internal conflicts, she provides opportunities for a truce, becoming a unifying factor, knowing that a divided house would not succeed when facing external battles. She forced Harvey and Louis to go on a dinner date during one peak of their rivalry. When she exited her firm's leadership and Harvey took charge, it was clear how smart she had been at management, as Harvey grappled with mistakes, some of which he had to rescind, like promoting Donna to senior partner before appointing her as chief operating officer.

Jessica's journey as a woman of color in a male-dominated field is remarkable. Her ascent to the pinnacle of leadership, becoming the first black woman to clock in the third circuit, underscores her resilience and determination. She confronted challenges head-on, overcoming obstacles to get to the very top of her career. While Mike and Harvey excel in their own right, Jessica's combination of legal brilliance, courtroom mastery, mentorship, and leadership makes her the embodiment of what a lawyer should be, and the best in Suits.

Namwene Mukabwa is a Kenyan writer, TV producer, budding filmmaker, and adjunct professor who got hooked on screens at 9 when his dad bought the family's first TV. He enjoys soccer and sampling music.