Better Call Saul is a show renowned with a global audience. The premise and its characters are adored, with some fans even preferring it to the show that started it all: Breaking Bad. No one could predict the desire and intrigue in a show about attorneys and lawyers over a show about a man with cancer cooking crystal meth and starting a drug empire.
As a spin-off about Saul Goodman, Better Call Saul is an intelligent and thrilling watch. The show leaves behind villainous enemies in favor of attorneys and lawyers, that Jimmy McGill must swindle and scam his way out of situations. Some of these lawyers feature prominently in Better Call Saul, but who is the best of them all?
8 Erin Brill
Erin Brill is first introduced as a first-year associate at Davis & Main. Erin Brill has a great career full of potential ahead of her, as long as she doesn’t take Jimmy McGill’s lessons to heart, and follows her professional path. What makes her the lowest ranking lawyer on the list is the fact that she is only a first-year associate, with little to no experience in any case, let alone one as big as the Sandpiper Crossing Case.
Erin possesses high respect and procedure for following the proper legal procedure and conduct. She appears highly adversarial to Jimmy McGill, who often tries to cut corners to benefit himself. Erin was tasked with “assisting” Jimmy McGill, making her competent enough to babysit an older and more experienced lawyer.
7 Bill Oakley
Bill Oakley’s career is no joke. For twelve years, he worked as a deputy district attorney and became famous for ending Albuquerque's coffee shop robberies while he served in the General Crimes Unit.
With a successful twelve years behind him, Bill Oakley is a great attorney and remains largely unchallenged in his field. Where Bill Oakley falters, is his lack of pursuit of a better career. When Bill finds out about Jimmy McGill’s Davis & Main job, he is brimming with jealousy, never able to pursue a job like that himself.
6 Clifford Main
Clifford Main exhibits great competence in his field. As a founder and senior partner of his law firm, Davis & Main, Clifford and his law firm are greatly respected in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Clifford is a good guy and gives Jimmy McGill great opportunities at his company. Even providing him with a great bonus, an expensive desk, a company car, and a great office. However, Jimmy abuses his kindness, and Clifford is forced to fire him.
Clifford is a great lawyer, and battles for the case of the Sandpiper Crossing case, which is argued to settle in the millions of dollars range. Where Clifford falters, is his inability to see Howard Hamlin, a close business partner, as trustworthy during Jimmy and Kim’s schemes. However, it does not insult Clifford’s intelligence and professionalism.
5 Richard Schweikart
As the co-founder of the Schweikart & Cokely law firm, Richard Schweikart presents himself as a great professional and the leading attorney for Sandpiper Crossing. Richard Schweikart has a great number of years of experience behind his back, and a talented law firm to help maintain the best outcome of a bad situation for his clients.
Richard Schweikart is a man of great respect and does things by the book. However, this does not stop Richard Schweikart from wasting the court’s time, by attempting to bury Jimmy and Chuck in paperwork to keep the Sandpiper Crossing case from ever settling. It just shows his efficiency as an attorney.
4 Howard Hamlin
As a corporate lawyer from Albuquerque, New Mexico, Howard Hamlin is the owner and CEO of the large Albuquerque-based law firm, Hamlin, Hamlin & McGill. As a managing partner and senior partner, Howard helped maintain Hamlin, Hamlin & McGill a greatly successful law firm. Their offices were astounding, and their business was booming.
Howard Hamlin was great in his profession, and his professional courtesy extended outside of work. He was always punctual, polite, and intelligent. Howard was able to see through Jimmy McGill’s scams on many occasions.
3 Kim Wexler
When Kim Wexler completed law school, paid for by Hamlin, Hamlin & McGill, she was inspired to continue her legal work at the law firm, and become an associate there. Her legal career as a lawyer was greatly appreciated by her many clients, and she dedicated all the time she had to them.
Kim Wexler was praised as an efficient and highly skilled lawyer with great negotiation skills. However, her downfall was her utter love for Jimmy McGill and her corruption of how much fun she had in a partnership with Slippin’ Jimmy over the law itself. However, Kim’s professionalism triumphed, and she did what she had to, no matter the loss.
2 Chuck McGill
As the co-founder and named partner of Hamlin, Hamlin & McGill, Chuck McGill is a brilliant lawyer at a prestigious law firm. Chuck holds the law in the highest of regard, perhaps more so than anyone. Chuck has a great intellect and brilliant attention to detail in the sharpest of things. Chuck will do the right thing, no matter what, as he sees it as the only path to success.
There are perhaps no lawyers quite like Chuck. The man knows the law like the back of his hand, and his sophistication alone is what wins courtrooms. However, his electromagnetic hypersensitivity is his downfall, as is his loathing and hatred for his own younger brother, whom he cannot see as anything less than Slippin’ Jimmy.
1 Saul Goodman
Formerly Jimmy McGill, Saul Goodman’s downfall into a ‘criminal’ criminal lawyer began way back in his youth. Saul Goodman’s name is a play on the phrase “it’s all good man!” and if someone has Saul Goodman as their lawyer, then it will be all good. There’s nothing that Saul can’t get his client out of. As long as they pay the fee, and not with American Express.
What makes Saul Goodman such a brilliant lawyer is the fact that he is a con artist, who does not care if he has to bend the law, and even break it, to get his client free. Saul holds himself above the law, and his intelligence is one of the greatest. Saul was even able to scam his intelligent older brother in a law battle, and now, Saul is unleashed in Albuquerque, New Mexico, to represent criminals in the city’s criminal underworld.
Better Call Saul airs on Mondays on AMC at 9:00 p.m. EST.