Picket Fences is an American family drama television series about the residents of the town of Rome, Wisconsin, created and produced by David E. Kelley.

[2] The series follows the lives of the residents of the small town of Rome, Wisconsin, where weird things happen, including cows' udders exploding and people turning up dead in freezers.

The show dealt with unusual topics for the primetime television of the period, such as abortion, incest, homophobia and LGBT adoption, transsexual, racism, belief in God, ethics in medicine, polygamy, polyamory, adolescent sexuality, date rape, cryonics, the Holocaust, shoe fetishism, masturbation, animal sacrifice, spontaneous human combustion, and constitutional rights.

They raise their three children, Kimberly (Holly Marie Combs) from Jimmy's first marriage to Lydia Brock (Cristine Rose), Matthew (Justin Shenkarow) and Zachary (Adam Wylie).

Kelly Connell played medical examiner Carter Pike (who regularly begged to be deputized) and Zelda Rubinstein portrayed police dispatcher Ginny Weedon.

Wambaugh refused to hear any confessions of guilt from his clients as he feared that it would only stand in the way of adequately defending them in court; and Bone's rulings seemed to be directed more by his own moral compass than by points of law, though his decisions were almost never reversed.

Other actors who were in the cast included Marlee Matlin as Mayor Laurie Bey / The Dancing Bandit, Richard Masur as Ed Lawson, Roy Brocksmith as elementary school principal Michael Oslo, Jack Murdock as ethically challenged city councilman Harold Lundstrom, Roy Dotrice as Father Gary Barrett, a Catholic priest, and Dabbs Greer as the Reverend Henry Novotny, priest of the local Episcopal church.