Paul Lewiston
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Paul Lewiston is a fictional character in the ABC Television Network series Boston Legal. He is portrayed by Rene Auberjonois.
Paul is the managing partner and legal advisor of the firm. He is the firm's workhorse, overseeing the more mundane day-to-day operations of a high-powered law firm such as maintenance and accounting while his litigator co-workers do the more visible in-court work. In fact, it has become a common directoral technique to avoid showing Paul doing any litigation or actual legal work. Paul is also an expert on Asian markets and has taught law in the past as a college instructor. Paul has been friends with Denny Crane for years, as they used to "criticize each other's openings and closings" on the firm's balcony.
Paul serves as the primary "straight man" at Crane, Poole, and Schmidt, and is often frustrated by the unethical and erratic behavior of both Denny Crane and Alan Shore. Paul has threatened to fire Alan on numerous occasions, once being while Alan considered eliciting testimony from a doctor that would harm the firm's own client, and again when Alan himself was on trial for paying a man to engage in a barfight on his behalf. On the other hand, he is often portrayed as representing business interests before social justice. After Denny's short-lived marriage threatened to bankrupt the firm, Paul considered giving up his partnership and starting a new law firm with Denise Bauer before the issue was resolved. Denny Crane once offered to make him a named partner, but he declined, citing responsibilities for his granddaughter.
Paul has an adult daughter, Rachel, from whom he became estranged after she became addicted to the recreational drug crystal meth. Recently, he began to reestablish his relationship with her, thinking her to be clean and sober now, only to learn that she has been actively abusing drugs again. In an ethically questionable and likely illegal move, he had her forcibly abducted from her apartment and taken to a rehabilitation facility (after giving her a chance to consent to going of her own will and being refused), where she currently resides. Paul has undertaken the care of Rachel's three-year-old daughter, Fiona, himself while Rachel completes her treatment. This has caused him to scale back his work for the time being, making him less of a presence at the firm.
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