Balcer is noted for writing and showrunning the television series
Law & Order, and for creating and showrunning its spin-off series
Law & Order: Criminal Intent. He was hired as staff writer on
Law & Order's first season in 1990, becoming showrunner in the show's seventh season in 1996. During his tenure as showrunner,
Law & Order won the Emmy for Outstanding Drama Series; became a Top Ten drama in the Nielsen ratings; was syndicated to TNT Network in a deal which at the time was the most expensive off-network series sale ever to cable; received an unprecedented five-season pick-up from NBC; and tied
Gunsmoke for longest-running TV drama. Balcer won an
Emmy in 1997 as Showrunner and Executive Producer of
Law & Order. He has also won a
Peabody Award, a
Writers Guild of America Award, four
Edgar Awards from the
Mystery Writers of America (three for his writing for
Law & Order, and a fourth for
Law & Order: Criminal Intent), a Career Award from the Reims International Television Festival, and a Career Angie Award from the International Mystery Writers Festival. In writing about legal issues, Balcer has drawn on his own experiences with law enforcement and his first-hand encounter with the brutal application of authoritarian power - at age 16, he was picked up as a suspected
FLQ sympathizer during Quebec's
October Crisis in 1970 and held overnight in the Montreal Police's infamous Station 10 where he was interrogated and beaten, before being released the next day. That experience, he says, gave him a harsh introduction to the reality lived by many disadvantaged communities. His work has been recognized outside the entertainment community: in 1999 and 2000, he received the
Silver Gavel Award from the
American Bar Association for his
Law & Order episodes "
DWB" and "
Hate"; in 2004, he received a
Margaret Sanger Award from
Planned Parenthood for his
Law & Order: Criminal Intent episode "
The Third Horseman"; in 2010, he received the Champion of Justice award from the Washington-based
Alliance for Justice, for his work on the
Law & Order episode "
Memo from the Dark Side". In 2004, he was awarded the
Alumnus of the Year from
Concordia University. On November 17, 2008, he received an honorary
Doctorate of Laws (LLD) from Concordia at their fall convocation and delivered the Commencement Address. Balcer has received additional recognitions, including being commissioned a
Kentucky Colonel by Kentucky Governor
Steve Beshear in 2008; in the Season Five episode of
The Sopranos, "
In Camelot",
Chris's writing friend JT (played by
Tim Daly) tells Chris that he has a meeting with René Balcer about a writing job. Balcer's altercation with a Fox employee during the Writers Guild strike on January 10, 2008 became the subject of a joke by David Letterman during his monologue on January 12, 2008. At the
North Dakota Museum of Art, Balcer's
Law & Order episodes are played in a continuous loop in the installation
Barton Benes Period Room: 21st Century Artist Studio. In October 2009, Balcer came under attack by right-wing bloggers for an episode of
Law & Order about the Bush Administration's Enhanced Interrogation policy. Writing in
Breitbart, former
Law & Order star
Michael Moriarty accused Balcer of being a "Marxist agent provocateur." Balcer said of the attacks, "What many of these critics fail to realize is that
Law & Order has always been an equal-opportunity offender, and if a Democratic administration had implemented this despicable (torture) policy, our show would have taken them to task for it." Balcer was
showrunner for
Law & Order: Criminal Intent through the
fifth season. In March 2007, Balcer returned to
Law & Order at the end of its
17th season as executive producer and head writer. He continued on as showrunner through the show's
20th and final season, writing and directing the show's series finale "
Rubber Room", which the
New York Times called the "best finale of all" that season's TV series. In June 2010, he was hired as showrunner of the
Law & Order spinoff,
Law & Order: Los Angeles.
LOLA, as it was called, was cancelled after one season, with Balcer again writing and directing the series finale. Balcer then rewrote the series finale of
Law & Order Criminal Intent, bringing to a close his long association with the
Law & Order franchise. In 2012, Balcer created the series
Jo, an English-language cop drama set in Paris and starring
Jean Reno,
Wunmi Mosaku and
Celyn Jones. Shot in Paris, the eight-episode series premiered internationally in January 2013.
Jo was ranked fourth in a listing of the Top 30 Best French Detective Series. In 2013, he served as showrunner and executive producer of the CBS pilot,
The Ordained, with
Charlie Cox. In 2013, Balcer made two short videos:
Watching Tea Leaves in Shanxi, was shot in China and is a
zen meditation on the dynamics of tea leaves in fluid, the video is available on Vimeo and YouTube; the other,
Blue Sky, was shot in Nice, France and is an "unhinged zen piece" featuring the music of Chinese contemporary composer
Huang Ruo, the video is available on Vimeo and YouTube. In 2015, Balcer wrote and produced
For Justice, a pilot for CBS directed by
Ava DuVernay, and developed a series about the porn world in the early 1980s with
Owen Wilson for the
Starz channel entitled
WonderWorld. In 2016, the CBC and NBC green lighted Balcer's environmental thriller
The Council set in the Canadian Arctic. In 2017, Balcer co-directed, co-wrote and produced the documentary
Above the Drowning Sea, narrated by
Julianna Margulies and
Tony Goldwyn. The documentary tells the epic story of thousands of Austrian Jewish refugees who escaped the Holocaust and found refuge in Shanghai. The film was an Official Selection at 31 international film festivals, winning the Golden Dragon Award for Best Documentary at the Ferrara Film Festival along with other awards and nominations at other festivals. In the summer of 2017, Balcer wrote and produced the limited series
Law & Order True Crime: The Menendez Murders, a kaleidoscopic take on the notorious 1989 murders of Beverly Hills socialites by their sons. Created by Balcer, the series stars
Edie Falco,
Heather Graham,
Josh Charles,
Elizabeth Reaser and
Anthony Edwards. The eight-episode series aired in the Fall of 2017 on NBC. In 2019, Balcer created
FBI: Most Wanted. The series stars
Julian McMahon,
Kellan Lutz,
Keisha Castle-Hughes, Roxy Sternberg and
Nathaniel Arcand, and premiered on CBS on January 7, 2020. It was that season's highest-rated new drama.
FBI: Most Wanted was renewed for a sixth season on April 9, 2024. Balcer has served on the jury for Best Drama Series at the 2013
Monte-Carlo Television Festival, and on the jury for Best Television Miniseries or Film at the 2014
Shanghai Television Festival. During his early days in Hollywood, Balcer was an usher at the Sunset Strip's
Tiffany Theater in 1981 for its famous midnight and 2 am screenings of the cult classic
Rocky Horror Picture Show. Balcer is a distant cousin of actress
Alana de la Garza, sharing a common relative
Juan Cortina, a Mexican folk hero known as the Rio Grande Robin Hood. ==Other activities==