Law and Order
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92 free Law and Order trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
50 free Law and Order trivia questions with answers. Are you a true Law and Order fan? Put your knowledge of the iconic crime drama franchise to the test with our comprehensive trivia quiz. From the original series to SVU and Organized Crime, see how well you know the detectives, cases, and unforgettable moments that made this show a television legend.
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Q 01Which phrase do Law & Order's promos use for its habit of basing plots on real news stories?
Ripped from the headlines
Ripped from the headlines is the slogan for plots that echo real cases, yet such episodes carry a disclaimer that the story is fictional; one lawyer still sued over a character too much like him.
Q 02Michael Moriarty played which Executive Assistant District Attorney in Law & Order's first four seasons?
Ben Stone
Ben Stone resigned in 1994, feeling responsible after one of his witnesses was murdered mid-trial, which opened the door to a new lead prosecutor.
Q 03Which politician appeared as himself on SVU in 2016 to talk about the backlog of untested rape kits?
Joe Biden
Joe Biden was vice president when he flew to New York to tape the cameo for the season-18 episode 'Making a Rapist'.
Q 04Which two parts make up the original 'Law & Order' episode structure?
Investigation and Trial
Investigation and Trial: detectives chase the suspect in the first half and prosecutors try the case in the second, a design that made the prosecution the hero, reversing the usual courtroom-drama formula.
Q 05What is the nickname of the 'Law & Order' scene-transition sound effect?
The Dun Dun
The Dun Dun, which composer Mike Post calls 'The Clang', is a blend of synthesised noises that he thinks of as the stylised sound of a jail cell locking.
Q 06Which actor played Law & Order prosecutor Jack McCoy from 1994 until the character resigned in 2024?
Sam Waterston
Sam Waterston played McCoy for some 400 episodes; the character quit so that the governor, not a vindictive mayor's ally, would choose the next District Attorney.
Q 07Richard Belzer agreed to bring John Munch to SVU only if which actor was cast as his partner?
Dean Winters
Dean Winters, whom Belzer saw as a little brother, got the part of Brian Cassidy but was contracted to HBO's Oz, so Cassidy transferred out midway through season one.
Q 08Jerry Orbach famously played which veteran detective on the original 'Law & Order'?
Lennie Briscoe
Lennie Briscoe was Orbach's role for 12 seasons; when the actor died in 2004 his eyes were donated at his own wish, giving sight to two women who needed corneas.
Q 09Fred Thompson joined Law & Order as DA Arthur Branch in 2002 while still a US senator from which state?
Tennessee
Tennessee: Thompson's first screen role was himself, in Marie, a 1985 film about a state parole scandal he had fought as a lawyer.
Q 10Which actor played the eccentric, brilliant Detective Robert Goren in 'Law & Order: Criminal Intent'?
Vincent D'Onofrio
Vincent D'Onofrio collapsed on set in 2004 and was diagnosed with exhaustion after 14-hour days as Goren; from the next season his episodes alternated with a second detective team's.
Q 11Steven Zirnkilton's narration opens every Law & Order episode and ends on which four-word line?
These are their stories
These are their stories closes the intro; Zirnkilton got the job after helping the show's creator buy a house in Maine and handing him a demo tape instead of a bill.
Q 12Which 1988 pilot about city officials tied to the mob sat unaired until Law & Order's first season?
Everybody's Favorite Bagman
Everybody's Favorite Bagman was shot for CBS, which passed; it aired two years later as the sixth episode, which is why its district attorney is played by Roy Thinnes, not Steven Hill.
Q 13Richard Belzer jokingly called Law & Order's scene-change sound effect what?
Q 21Michael Moriarty quit Law & Order in 1994 after a feud with which U.S. Attorney General over television violence?
Janet Reno
Janet Reno had begun pushing in 1993 for limits on violence in television; Moriarty denounced that as censorship and handed in his resignation in January 1994.
Q 22According to SVU's opening narration, sexually based offenses are considered especially what?
Heinous
Heinous is the word; Christopher Meloni, who heard the narration open every episode for 12 seasons, still fluffed it when asked to recite the intro from memory.
Q 23Which rapper plays Detective Odafin 'Fin' Tutuola on 'Law & Order: Special Victims Unit'?
Ice-T
Ice-T joined SVU in 2000, eight years after his band Body Count's song 'Cop Killer' infuriated police groups and government officials.
The Dick Wolf Cash Register
'The Dick Wolf Cash Register': Belzer's joke about what the sound earns its creator; composer Mike Post himself calls the effect 'The Clang'.
Q 14After punching a politician in 1995, Law & Order's Mike Logan was transferred to a squad on which New York island?
Staten Island
Staten Island was treated as banishment: Jack McCoy called the posting 'two-and-a-half to five', and the 1998 TV movie about the detective's fight to get back was titled Exiled.
Q 15Which 'Law & Order: SVU' actress, as Olivia Benson, holds the record for longest-running character in a US primetime drama?
Mariska Hargitay
Mariska Hargitay has played Benson since 1999, and the role led her to found the Joyful Heart Foundation, which supports survivors of sexual assault, domestic violence and child abuse.
Q 16Law & Order's original 20-season run tied which Western's record as the longest-running live-action primetime series?
Gunsmoke
Gunsmoke also ran 20 seasons; NBC cancelled Law & Order in 2010 one season short of beating it, and the record fell instead to the show's own spin-off in 2019.
Q 17Which SVU detective studied law at night and left the squad in 2019 to become its prosecutor?
Sonny Carisi
Sonny Carisi passed the bar exam in season 17 yet chose to stay a detective, and only later crossed to the district attorney's office to try the squad's cases himself.
Q 18Steven Hill's District Attorney Adam Schiff was loosely based on which real-life Manhattan DA?
Robert Morgenthau
Robert Morgenthau ran the office from 1975 to 2009 and became a devoted viewer of the show himself; his wife said he loved Adam Schiff.
Q 19SVU leads Elliot Stabler and Olivia Benson were named after whom?
Dick Wolf's children
Dick Wolf's children: he named the two detectives after his son Elliot and his daughter Olivia when creating the series in 1999.
Q 20Which actor played Detective Joe Fontana, the senior detective who joined Law & Order's 27th Precinct in 2004?
Dennis Farina
Dennis Farina had spent 18 years as a Chicago police officer before turning to acting; Fontana lasted two seasons and then retired off screen.
Q 24Which British network commissioned 'Law & Order: UK', the franchise's London-set adaptation?
ITV
ITV ordered 13 episodes built on scripts from the American original; the run stopped in 2014 when its star Bradley Walsh chose to leave.
Q 25Who played ADA Alexandra Cabot on 'Law & Order: SVU' and again in 'Conviction'?
Stephanie March
Stephanie March's Cabot was shot, declared dead and hidden in Witness Protection in 2003; she resurfaced running a bureau of young prosecutors in the 2006 spin-off.
Q 26Which Disney character was voiced by Jerry Orbach, a year before he joined Law & Order's cast?
Lumière
Lumière, the candelabra who leads 'Be Our Guest' in Beauty and the Beast, was Orbach's voice, and he performed the number live at the 1992 Academy Awards.
Q 27What was the name of Detective Elliot Stabler's wife in 'Law & Order: SVU' and 'Organized Crime'?
Kathy
Kathy, played by Isabel Gillies, died after a car bombing in 2021, the loss that drives her husband into the Organized Crime Control Bureau.
Q 28Why did Christopher Meloni leave SVU after its twelfth season in 2011?
No new contract was agreed
No new contract was agreed in May 2011, so his detective retired off screen after a squad-room shooting; a decade later the actor came back to lead a spin-off.
Q 29Which actress guest-starred as a grieving mother in season one before returning as Law & Order's Lieutenant Van Buren?
S. Epatha Merkerson
S. Epatha Merkerson went on to command the squad for 17 seasons; in the last of them Van Buren spent the year fighting cervical cancer.
Q 30Which network first ordered 13 episodes of 'Law & Order' on the concept alone, then backed out?
Fox
Fox ordered 13 episodes with no pilot; CBS then ordered a pilot but passed too, and the show finally landed at NBC, where it stayed for its entire run.