Deadline reported in an exclusive that Peacock has moved forward for the development of a series adaptation of author Michele Campbell’s 2023 novel The Intern. The project originates from Julia Cohen (The Royals, Riverdale), who is credited as writer and executive producer.

Alongside Cohen, State Street Pictures’s George Tillman Jr. (Soul Food, Men of Honor), Robert Prinz (The Crossover, Family Reunion), and Robert Teitel (Barbershop: The Next Cut, One Golden Summer) are named by Deadline as EPs, while Tillman is anticipated to serve as director. Author Campbell will produce, with Universal Television (a division of Universal Studio Group) acting as the project’s studio. State Street Pictures is represented by Ziffren Brittenham, CAA, and Kaplan Perrone.

The eponymous novel follows the central character and young Harvard law student Madison Rivera, who has landed the opportunity of a lifetime through an internship with Judge Kathryn Conroy. However, things are not as they seem and Madison – already cutting it close by working with the judge overseeing her younger brother’s arrest – finds herself at the center of a legal thriller exploring power, corruption, and the true nature of justice. Perhaps, she and the honorable Conroy are more alike than they think in the dangerous cat-and-mouse game that is a court of law. 

Via Deadline, The Intern draws on Campbell’s background as a Harvard University and Stanford Law School graduate. Prior to her work as a novelist, she worked at a Manhattan law firm and spent eight years as a New York federal prosecutor. Other notable works under her pen include A Stranger on The Beach, It’s Always the Husband, and The Wife Who Knew Too Much. She is repped by Jane Rotrosen Agency and CAA.

Cohen’s most recent credits, from Deadline, include EP-ing on ABC’s Quantico and A Million Little Things, and the USA Network adaptation of John Grisham’s Rainmaker. She is known for her role in creating, developing, and co-showrunning ABC’s The Company You Keep, and started out on the TNT reboot of Dallas after graduating from the WB Writers’ Workshop and the WGA’s Showrunner Training Program. Cohen is repped by Amplified, JSSK, and Gersh.