The Lawyer is a 1970 courtroom drama film loosely based on the Sam Sheppard murder case, in which a physician is charged with killing his wife following a highly publicized and sloppy investigation. The film was directed by Sidney J. Furie, starring Barry Newman as the energetic, opportunistic defense attorney Tony Petrocelli and Diana Muldaur as his wife Ruth Petrocelli. The supporting cast features Robert Colbert, Kathleen Crowley (in her final role), and an unbilled bit part featuring an emerging, then-on-the-rise, star Michael Murphy as an intern in a legal office. The film is the source of the role Newman reprised in the TV series Petrocelli.