Kiele Sanchez is cruising into a new role…

The 42-year-old half-Puerto Rican actress has been cast as a female lead in CBS’ drama The Lincoln Lawyer.

The project hails from The Practice creator David E. Kelleyand based on Michael Connelly’s series of bestselling novels. 

Ted Humphreywill serve as an executive producer and showrunner on the project, and Adam Bernsteinhas been tapped to direct and executive produce the project, which has a series order. 

It hails from A+E Studios, which will co-produce with CBS Television Studios. 

Sanchez is the first actor cast as the search continues for the lead role of Mickey Haller, played in the 2011 feature adaptation by Matthew McConaughey.

Written by Kelley and directed by Bernstein, The Lincoln Lawyer centers on Mickey Haller, an iconoclastic idealist, who runs his law practice out of the back of his Lincoln Town Car, as he takes on cases big and small across the expansive city of Los Angeles.

Sanchez will play Lorna, Mickey’s second ex-wife and a constant confidante who works as his office manager, running the business side of Mickey’s practice while he traverses the town in his Lincoln. Part secretary and part therapist, Lorna is supportive and encouraging of Mickey, who’s in recovery from an opioid addiction, but she’s also concerned about him taking on more than he can handle in his first important case back after rehab.

In the 2011 film, the role was played by Pell James.

Sanchez starred as Lisa Prince on DirecTV’s Kingdom and was the co-lead of A&E’s crime drama The Glades.