Florek played Dave Meyer, the husband of Susan Ruttan's character, Roxanne Melman, on 22 episodes of NBC's hit drama L.A. Law beginning in 1988.

Florek also had a recurring role in the WB sitcom Smart Guy as the high school gym coach, and appeared in several episodes of Roseanne.

[4] The first few years of Law & Order had mediocre ratings and finally, after the close of the 1992–1993 season, NBC told creator/executive producer Dick Wolf that they would cancel it unless he added a few women to the all-male cast.

[5] Wolf reluctantly complied and fired Florek as well as Richard Brooks (who played Paul Robinette), replacing them with S. Epatha Merkerson and Jill Hennessy, respectively.

[5] Florek reprised the role of Cragen in the 1995 episode "Bad Faith" (which he also directed), and in the 1998 TV-movie Exiled: A Law & Order Movie, centered on the character Mike Logan, played by Chris Noth.

In the 500th episode of SVU, he appeared as Cragen in a video chat with his former detective Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), now captain of the unit.