Jack McCoy
Most of the time the phrase "badass lawyer" is a complete oxymoron, sort of like referring to "scientific creationism", a "cool D&D character" or "the non-slutty Hilton sister". In the case of Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Jack Motherfucking McCoy however, the phrase carries more weight than a Jenny Craig commercial in a room full of Sumo wrestlers battling silverback gorillas.
I previously mentioned tough-as-shit hardnosed Detective Lennie Briscoe on this site, but I feel that Jack McCoy needs to have his due as well. I mean, it wouldn't be "Law & Order" without the "Order", and Jack McCoy drops the motherfucking order all over defendants' asses like a wrecking ball made out of electric chairs. He's a ruthless prosecutor, willing to stop at nothing to ensure that murderers and other criminals get chucked head-first into Federal Pound Me in the Ass Prison and remain there until such time as they receive a lethal injection or die from old age. He's always willing to go the extra mile to lock up jerks who he knows are guilty, even if it means he has to re-write the Constitution of the United States and slap someone's grandmother in the face to accomplish the task. He's impossible to intimidate, unsuseptible to bribery, unfazed by anything you can throw at him, and not even remotely afraid to drop the hammer on anyone from the lowest, most pathetic criminal dirtbag to accomplished U.S. Senators and snooty high-class foreign emmisarries. He'll do it all and he doesn't even give a shit because that's just how "Hang 'em High" McCoy rolls.
Jack is the epitome of Lawful Neutral. He doesn't give a shit about why a defendant committed a crime (unless of course he's using the information to establish motive with the jury), or whether or not their murder was justified. He doesn't want to hear your fucking bullshit sob story, and even after you tell it to him he pretty much always assumes you're lying or exploiting the system anyways. He doesn't give a crap about you or your feelings - he firmly believes that if you commit a crime, for whatever reason, you gotta pay for it. Your fragile mental condition combined with societal pressures and excessive medication caused you to brutally murder your wife with a hatchet? Murder two. Twenty-five to life. You tripped and knocked some random bystander into traffic and they got smashed by a bus? Man one. Reckless endangerment. You'll get twenty years. He's an emotionless automaton like fucking Hammurabi or King Solomon or some shit, which is hardcore as hell. The only actual human emotion he ever expresses is what I would call "righteous indignation", and he's really only even displayed that about four times in his entire career.
On top of being completely balls-out and utterly unwilling to take bullshit from anyone on the face of the planet, he's also a brilliant legal mind. The guy is the absolute master of the closing argument, and the only cases he doesn't win are the ones where the cops fucked up and didn't get him enough evidence for conviction. The man could fucking convince a jury of twelve Catholics to convict the Pope of Heresy if he wanted to. He could call you into his office for a plea agreement, make you rat out your entire family and accept a sentence of fifteen years in prison, and you'd still walk out of there thinking you got off easy (here's a secret - you did).
Defense attorneys always know where they can find Jack after hours - sidled up at the courtroom bar with a Scotch on the rocks. For a man like Jack McCoy, it's all about two things: hard drinking and sentencing criminals to harsh sentences. Nothing else really matters, and he likes it that way. That's fucking tough. He's also an insanely good darts player, which is simply icing on the cake. Jack McCoy rocks.
