It was created by television writer Reginald Rose, and stars E. G. Marshall and Robert Reed as father-and-son defense attorneys Lawrence and Kenneth Preston.

[2] Lawrence Preston (Marshall) and Kenneth Preston (Reed) are father-and-son defense attorneys who specialized in legally complex cases, with defendants such as neo-Nazis, conscientious objectors, demonstrators of the Civil Rights Movement, a schoolteacher fired for being an atheist, an author accused of pornography, and a physician charged in a mercy killing.

"[1] Topics featured in the series included abortion, capital punishment, "no-knock" searches, custody rights of adoptive parents, the insanity defense, the "poisoned fruit doctrine," immigration quotas, the Hollywood blacklist, jury nullification, and Cold War visa restrictions.

[3] It was thought the move to “ratings graveyard” Thursday nights after a successful prime time reign on Saturday evenings, was a conservative corporate device to force the socially conscious program into cancellation, which it ultimately did.

The Defenders won 14 Primetime Emmy Awards (including three in a row for Outstanding Drama Series) and received an additional eight nominations.

The Museum of Broadcast Communications called it "perhaps the most socially conscious series the medium has ever seen", a show "singularly resonant with New Frontier liberalism".

The director's refusal led to the network being forced to film the abortion-centric script, which an executive assigned to find advertisers for the show proclaims was the plan all along.

In his memoir, Randy Barnett, a law professor at Georgetown, credits watching The Defenders as a child as the inspiration for him to enter the legal profession.