List of Suits characters


Suits is an American legal drama, created by Aaron Korsh. It premiered on USA Network in June 2011. The series revolves around Harvey Specter, a senior partner at a top law firm in Manhattan, and his recently hired associate attorney [|Mike Ross] as they hide the fact that Mike does not have a law degree. Each episode focuses on a single legal case and its challenges while examining the work environment of the firm, Mike's and Harvey's personal relationships, and problems stemming from Mike's lack of a degree. The rest of the starring cast portray other employees at the firm: Louis Litt, a partner who manages the associates; Rachel Zane, a paralegal who develops feelings for Mike; Donna Paulsen, Harvey's long-time legal secretary, close friend, and confidante; and Jessica Pearson, the co-founder and managing partner of the firm.

Overview

Note:

Main characters

Harvey Specter

Harvey Reginald Specter, played by Gabriel Macht, is a newly promoted senior partner at the prestigious New York law firm Pearson Hardman and is known as one of the city's top litigators. He was born and raised in Riverside, NY, the same town as fellow attorney [|Samantha Wheeler]. In the pilot episode, he is told of his promotion to senior partner—the youngest to hold that position—and is forced to hire a Harvard Law School graduate to be his associate attorney. He is impressed with Mike Ross' quick thinking and drive to be a good lawyer, as well as his inherent ability to absorb enormous amounts of information and his extensive knowledge of law. Mike, however, does not have a law degree, but is hired anyway because Harvey does not want to waste time interviewing less-promising candidates. Mike reminds Harvey of a younger version of himself, and so they agree to conspire to pretend that Mike is a Harvard graduate. He acts as Mike's mentor, as well as his immediate superior: although he performs these roles somewhat reluctantly and emotionally distantly at first, he later begins to show that he does care about Mike and Mike's future as a lawyer.
Harvey began working in the mail room, went to New York University for his undergraduate degree, and Jessica Pearson later paid for his tuition at Harvard Law, from which he graduated in 1997. Though years later Jessica muses to him that he did not take his studies seriously, he still graduated fifth in his class. Although he intended to start his law career at Gordon, Schmidt & Van Dyke, Jessica sent him to the New York County District Attorney's Office for mentoring and he worked as an assistant district attorney under District Attorney Cameron Dennis. While there, he met his legal secretary Donna Paulsen, who became his close friend and confidante. After two years, he discovered a case with which Dennis was suppressing evidence, and rather than report it, Harvey abruptly left the DA's office despite being offered the position of head litigator, to go into private practice at Pearson Hardman. Five years before the events of the series Jessica Pearson informs him that she has discovered an embezzler in the firm and requests that Harvey discreetly investigate; in return, he requests a promotion to junior partner upon its successful completion. While Harvey initially believes the culprit to be Louis Litt whom he falsely accuses, with help from several other lawyers at the firm, including Louis Litt, Harvey discovers that the money is being embezzled by [|Daniel Hardman], the founding managing partner of the firm who was using Louis as a scapegoat. When Harvey discovers this, he insists that Jessica must report it to the DA; she refuses, choosing to instead confront Daniel, who claims the money is being used to fund his wife's cancer treatments. However, after further investigation, Harvey discovers that in reality the money is being used to finance an affair with a colleague, Monica Eton, whom Louis was also romantically interested in. Shortly afterwards, Harvey learns that his father Gordon succumbed to a myocardial infarction; though visibly devastated at this news, he mourns quietly, choosing to celebrate his promotion instead.
Harvey strongly prefers out-of-court settlements over going to court; Harvey's longstanding belief is that a courtroom has too many variables for him to be able to control, a tenet that was instilled into him by DA Cameron Dennis, his mentor. Despite the fact that Jessica Pearson, his immediate superior, is more cautious and favors lower risk over greater reward, Harvey often ignores her instructions, openly challenges her decisions, and generally does as he wants. While Harvey's methods often result in greater profit for the firm than Pearson's preferred strategy, his risk-taking tends to perpetuate her belief that he needs to remain on a leash. Harvey places his own interests above those of his colleagues, although his job performance always benefits his clients, and, by extension, Pearson Hardman and its employees. He dislikes pro bono publico cases, most likely due to their simplicity; generally, he will assign such cases to Mike Ross. On occasion, however, Harvey will waive his right to collect legal fees for less wealthy clients; in these cases, he insists that this be kept secret for the sake of his reputation.
He has a rivalry with Louis Litt that began when they were associates; though Harvey feels superior to Louis and often mocks him, he respects Louis, acknowledging his financial expertise and commitment to the firm, and considers him a skilled lawyer. This rivalry is later shown to be friendly most of the time; Louis characterizes it as similar to that between Ralph the Wolf and Sam the Sheepdog in the Looney Tunes cartoons. Louis, in turn, reluctantly realizes Harvey's value to the firm. In a season 2 episode, Louis humiliates Donna on the witness stand in a preparatory mock trial, and Harvey confronts Louis afterwards, stating that Louis has taken their rivalry too far. Louis fires back that, although the experience pained him greatly, he did it to accurately portray the lengths Tanner would have gone to in court if the case had gone to trial.
Harvey performs his work with cold professionalism, rarely showing emotional attachment to his client. However, Harvey expresses a strong loyalty for those who have been loyal to him, such as Donna, his longtime secretary, Ray Benghazi, his driver, and Mike Ross, his associate. When confronted about his emotional distance, he states that caring makes a person appear weak, and that a lawyer who shows feelings gets trampled. Because of this belief, he never shows any vulnerability, even to romantic interests. In season 5, Harvey starts having panic attacks as a consequence of Donna leaving him to work for Louis. He starts seeing a therapist.
Harvey has several female romantic interests, but he has trouble committing to a long-term relationship. He briefly dated former colleague Zoe Lawford before their relationship ended. He then attempted to have a real relationship with his Dana "Scottie" Scott in the second half of season 3, which was revealed to be a rekindling of a past relationship. But this ended in the season 3 finale when the two realized they could not handle the necessary separation between their personal and business lives. Later in season 7, he dated Doctor Paula Agard, his therapist but it ended later in the season when she gave him an ultimatum to choose between their relationship and working with Donna.
Since the very beginning, Harvey has been attached to Donna more than anyone else and they both have a very strong friendship and often portray romantic feelings for each other. She is his moral compass and the only person Harvey listens to. In the finale of season 8, Harvey is able to realise his feelings for Donna and they kiss with all their pent up feelings and emotions. The series ends with the pair getting married. In Suits LA it is revealed that Harvey and Donna have a son together.
He seems to have had a good relationship with his father Gordon Specter, a saxophone player; Gordon was immensely proud of Harvey, called him at work, and constantly wondered why his son had not been promoted to partner. It is insinuated by [|Travis Tanner] that his mother was promiscuous, and Jessica's statements about Harvey's personality suggest his early life was emotionally damaging; Harvey later reveals in a conversation with Mike that Tanner's insinuations were true. Lily repeatedly cheated on Gordon Specter, and Harvey first witnessed this at young age, and again at the age of sixteen. He kept quiet about it so as not to distress his father but eventually told him. His mother then left them; and he held deep-rooted hatred for his mother for years but made amends with her in season 6 after Donna told him to. Harvey also has a younger brother ; little else is known about his past or family.
Harvey is a car and sports enthusiast and was a star pitcher for his high school baseball team. However, a shoulder injury prevented him from pitching in the state championship; the team won without his help, a fact that has continued to haunt him. His office features an extensive vinyl record collection made up of albums from many prominent soul artists such as The Spinners, Charles Bradley and Lee Fields. His office also features a collection of signed basketballs and baseballs autographed by a variety of athletes including Kobe Bryant, Larry Bird and Patrick Ewing. Harvey is also shown to belong to a car club. He also loves Macallan single malt Scotch. He dated Elizabeth Hurley in 1998.
He constantly quotes movies, such as Top Gun, The Untouchables, The Breakfast Club, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, The Silence of the Lambs, and Highlander.

Mike Ross

Michael James Ross, played by Patrick J. Adams, is a lawyer, with an eidetic memory and the ability to absorb large amounts of printed material very rapidly, who never attended law school. While in college, he aspired to be a lawyer and even passed the bar examination on a dare. However, he was expelled after his friend [|Trevor Evans] convinced him to memorize a calculus test and sell it in order to pay off Trevor's debts to a drug dealer, and they unknowingly sold the answers to the Dean's daughter, forcing the dean to resign under scrutiny, but not before revoking Mike's scholarship and expelling him. Since then, he began smoking marijuana and took the LSAT as a proxy for others to pay the nursing home bills of his grandmother, who raised him after his parents died when he was eleven. To keep his grandmother in the private nursing home, he agrees to deliver marijuana for Trevor. However, he discovers that the delivery is a sting operation, because he read a novel in elementary school that matched the situation. He escapes the police by accidentally slipping into the hotel room where Harvey Specter's interviews for prospective associate attorneys is taking place. He impresses Harvey with his encyclopedic knowledge of law and drive to become a better lawyer than any graduate of Harvard Law School, the only school from which the Pearson Hardman law firm hires.
Harvey hires him and becomes his reluctant mentor, keeping Mike's lack of a law license a secret from everyone at the firm except Donna. Later, a hacker alters Harvard Law's records to show that Mike is a graduate. Mike often comes across as naive and initially has trouble adjusting to daily life as an attorney. He often gets emotionally involved with clients and even with some opponents, a trait both Harvey and Jessica Pearson view as weakness. Despite this, Mike does not want to be a cold-hearted and emotionally distant person like Harvey.
Mike has feelings for Trevor's girlfriend [|Jenny Griffith] and is her boyfriend after she breaks up with Trevor. However, Jenny breaks up with him because Trevor told her about a voicemail Rachel left talking about their kiss and confronts him about his feelings for Rachel Zane. He does not want to base his relationship with Rachel on a lie, so he intends to tell her that he does not have a law degree. Harvey advises him against this, and since he does not want to base his relationship on a lie he breaks up with Rachel even though he does not want to. In season 2 episode 3 Mike needs a file from Rachel, and when he goes to collect it he sees that she is creating an online dating profile. She tells Mike that she has been working on the profile for 3 days, but yet the profile is still blank. Mike helps Rachel with the profile, describing her with a lot of superlatives, also saying that men will be standing line just because of her profile picture. Later that night Rachel visits Mike, because she does not understand why they cannot be in a relationship when it is obvious that they have feelings for each other. She finds out that Mike is keeping a secret from her, but he does not want to tell her what it is.
In the last episode of season 2, Mike does eventually tell her about his secret, but the timing is awful, as Rachel had just found out that she was denied admission to Harvard Law. She smacks Mike in the face a few times, but they end up having sex in the file room. Afterwards Rachel begins to distance herself from Mike, but Mike fights for her, and in the start of season 3, they get into a relationship.
Mike later takes a job as an investment banker to avoid having his fraud come back to haunt him, jeopardizing his future as well as Harvey's.
As season 4 begins, Mike gets his feet wet with his first case as an investment banker on a takeover with Gillis Industries. This puts him and Harvey at edge, seeing as how the other party working on the takeover is Logan Sanders, and he is represented by Harvey and Pearson Specter. Mike boldly goes head to head with Harvey, holding his own until finally succumbing when Louis undoes a deal Mike was working with Charles Forstman for money. As a direct result of the deal with Forstman, which Mike agreed to cut his boss Jonathan Sidwell out of, and which Forstman himself notified Sidwell, Mike was promptly fired, but gets offered a job by Forstman. Before taking a job with Charles Forstman, Louis Litt, guilty over his own deal with Forstman, uses a favor with Jessica to rehire Mike to Pearson Specter. His relationship with Rachel is tumultuous during this period, finding out that she had a history with Logan and also that she had kissed him while they were together. At first Mike had broken off their relationship following this betrayal. Mike tells Rachel that he needs time to think about things, and starts living in a hotel. Mike then relented, realizing he cared greatly for her, enough to overlook the incident and he moved back in after she approached him and convinced him to do so. For the remainder of the season, Mike is in the background, doing side work, and helping solve issues as Louis Litt's deal with Forstman falls apart. Mike, through his own compassion in the final summer episode of Suits, "This is Rome..." returns Louis's possessions to his house. When there, and attempting to comfort Louis, he asks about a key he found in Louis's box of things. At first, Louis takes it as playful and dismisses him. However, after Mike asks about the key again when he failed to get Louis hired with Robert Zane, Louis is able to piece together that Mike truly is not a Harvard graduate.
In season 5, Mike's secret is discovered and he accepts time in prison for 2 years after a long trial against Anita Gibbs, an attorney who makes sending him to jail her life's mission.
In season 6, Mike is able to cut down his prison time with the help of Harvey and works as a teacher at the church for a while before being reported by a student's parent. He then passes the bar with the help of Harvey and Jessica even though Anita Gibbs makes a full effort to stop him.
In season 7, he returns to the firm. In the last episode of season 7, Mike marries Rachel and they both leave the firm to run a legal clinic in Seattle.
Mike returns from Seattle in season 9 with a case that intersects with one of the firm's clients. The case ultimately leads to special master Faye Richardson firing Samantha Wheeler. In the series finale, Mike and Harvey devise a scheme to get Faye to leave.