(CNN) It was 33 years ago that television audiences were introduced to Jimmy Smits in his groundbreaking, star-making role as the passionate, principled public defender-turned-top-dollar defense attorney Victor Sifuentes on "L.A. Law," one of the first highly visible, uber-successful and multidimensional Latino faces to regularly grace the small screen.

Today, Smits' new series "Bluff City Law" brings him back to TV courtrooms on a steady basis for the first time in over a quarter century (after excursions into the pay cable and boutique networks landscapes, it also brings him back to "L.A. Law's" home network, NBC). The power suits are still expensive and the billing hours are stratospheric, and the principals remain largely in place. With the accumulated gravitas he's earned over the course of three decades, Smits plays Elijah Strait, an elite, revered Memphis civil rights attorney who's recently added his canny, crusading and once-estranged daughter Sydney (Caitlin McGee) to his firm.

"His character energy is a lot different than the bouncy, idealistic Victor Sifuentes -- forget about the fabulous 27 years or something in between," Smits tells CNN with a chuckle. "He is a pillar of the legal community, not only because he's older, but also the types of cases that he's handled and the significance of his work in the community. It just spoke to me in terms of what his energy needs to be, at least on the outside, because TV's kind of fluid: different things can happen, but you need to feel like he's a rock."

It's the moments that the rock may not always be as solid as expected that create ripples "for the other concentric circle that's very important in this drama, which is the firm -- which is a family just as much as the father and daughter relationship." Indeed. Elijah has kept a few crucial secrets from Sydney in particular, further complicated by the recent passing of her mother, that promise to create as much drama outside the courtroom as within

"Because of the jump-off point of the loss and grief that we're dealing with, we're going to have to cover an emotional terrain that's going to be a rollercoaster ride, in a lot of different ways," says Smits, who calls McGee "a super talented actor that's very emotionally grounded and appreciative of the written word."

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