The Lawyer

The Lawyer (aka The Jew Lawyer) is an attorney who has had several run-ins with the Gang. Like The Waitress, his real name is unknown, and he is not actually Jewish.

The Lawyer has a strong dislike for the gang. He often uses his sharp intellect and knowledge of the law against them. Although he loses the only case against The Gang tried in a court of law.

About
The Lawyer went to Harvard for law school.

He had a lovely wife, but at some point she decided to leave him. Their divorce process was very emotionally turbulent for The Lawyer because he was still very much in love with her. This is why he had to turn away her photo on his desk, sleep in a fleabag motel and had several "crying episodes". ​

He claims he is not Jewish (he states this after refers to him as "the Jew lawyer"). However, in Season Eleven The Lawyer returns to attempt to beat the Gang in a court case. Dee attempts to call him out and label him as a liar and finds out on "some ancestry website" that an ancestor of his has a Jewish last name. The Lawyer doesn't argue against the matter.

Behind The Lawyer you can see a plaque than reads "Desert Storm Veteran," which implies that The Lawyer is a veteran of the conflict.

Season Three
The Gang mistook The Lawyer for having personal involvement as the executor of Barbara Reynolds's will even though he had never met her. ​

Season Five
The Lawyer was eager to personally stop. He represented a family whom Frank is trying to force out of their house. After made an attempt to prove that he's more legally apt than the actual Lawyer, Charlie challenged The Lawyer to a duel. He immediately accepted, claiming to have a loaded gun in his office desk.

The Gang later went to him to get patents for products that they have created. He then tricked them into signing a contract which gives him all the profits made from their products and includes a restraining order. He also made hundreds of copies so Mac can't eat the contracts — a call back to earlier in the episode when Mac eats Dee's waitress contract making it null and void. ​

Season Six
The Lawyer represented Maureen Ponderosa in her divorce from pro bono because he hates Dennis and the Gang. After meeting with Dennis's incompetent lawyer Jack Kelly (Charlie's uncle) The Lawyer and Jack map out an agreement where Dennis and Maureen will divorce, and Dennis will assume all of her debts and make alimony payments to her.

Season Eight
The Lawyer, in his role as the executor of Barbara Reynolds's estate, has to tell and  that their grandfather, Pop-Pop, is in a coma and is on life support. Since they are his last living blood relatives they must decide if he should remain on life support or be allowed to die. The Lawyer seems very eager for them to decide to pull the plug on Pop-Pop, because that would mean The Lawyer's duties as Barbara's executor are done, and he will never have to see Dennis, Dee, or anyone else in the Gang again. When Dee and Dennis hesitate to pull the plug, The Lawyer has them sign a power of attorney agreement so that he can give the authorization to stop Pop-Pop's life support. However, Pop-Pop begins breathing on his own after the respirators are turned off, so The Lawyer is not free of The Gang yet.

Season Eleven
The Lawyer's character returns in Season 11, where he is seen representing Liam McPoyle in his lawsuit against Bill Ponderosa, for the destruction caused by Bill's drugging of the milk at McPoyle's wedding. It seems that the Lawyer's hatred of the Gang has only grown stronger and more pre-occupying to him since his last appearance. Despite greeting the Gang with an air of confidence (after once again reminding Frank that he is not Jewish), and assuring them that he relishes the idea of 'crushing them', he becomes visibly upset on the courtroom floor when describing his past relations to the Gang, and their toll on his personal life, [blaming them for the failure of his marriage(s)]. In an endeavor to discredit him, Dee attempts to prove he is lying about not being Jewish by dramatically revealing that she found a distant ancestor of his with a Jewish surname. The trial predictably descends into chaos, leaving the Lawyer maimed by Royal McPoyle, a Poconos Swallow that Pappy McPoyle keeps under his hat. At the behest of his handler, Royal swoops at the Lawyer, gouging his right eye, potentially blinding him (although it is yet to be seen if these injuries are permanent). While these events do reinforce Charlie's 'bird-law' legal strategy, the overall pandemonium (supplemented by Dennis playing with the 'cat' Maureen Ponderosa) in the courtroom convinces the judge to throw out the case, leaving the Lawyer defeated, disfigured, and enraged.

Appearances

 * : "Dennis and Dee's Mom Is Dead"
 * : "The Gang Exploits the Mortgage Crisis," "Paddy's Pub: Home of the Original Kitten Mittens"
 * : "Dennis Gets Divorced"
 * : "Pop-Pop: The Final Solution"
 * Season Eleven: "McPoyle vs. Ponderosa: The Trial of the Century"
 * It’s Always Sunny: Gang Goes Mobile

Trivia

 * The Lawyer is the second unnamed recurring character on the show. The first one is The Waitress.
 * According to, The Lawyer's ex-wife looks like a "stone-cold bitch". ​
 * The Lawyer is not the only person who have restraining order against The Gang; the other happened to be Sully, a former friend of the gang who received a restraining order against Charlie ​. It is also revealed that The Waitress has a restraining order against Charlie.
 * Though the character is generally referred to as "The Lawyer", including by the show's creators, the credits always call him either just "Attorney" ​, or "The Attorney" (all other episodes).
 * The Lawyer made an appearance in a promotional trailer for Season 10 but did not appear in any episodes of Season 10.
 * The Lawyer is "not Jewish."