If a lawyer was going to make a case for watching NBC’s new legal drama, “Harry’s Law,” he would argue the following: All you really need to know is that the show stars a woman who could spit nails and make you love her for doing it: Kathy Bates. Everything else, including the show’s quirky sensibility, bestowed by David E. Kelley (“Boston Legal”), and the nonsensical venue for Bates’ law firm — Harriet’s Law and Fine Shoes — is just gravy.

“I used to love shoes,” says Bates, 62. “But now I don’t adore anything. I’ve got enough shoes, enough handbags, enough jewelry, enough stuff, thank you very much.”

Bates, who toted home an Academy Award for “Misery” (1990), was dream casting for Kelley, who had originally written the central role — a burnt-out corporate patent attorney — for a man. But when the casting sessions went nowhere, the producers decided to hire a woman. Bates’ name immediately shot to the top of the list. Why?

“Because [Harry] is a card-carrying curmudgeon,” says Kelley. “And it’s very easy for audiences to say, ‘You know what? There’s enough to get depressed about without the networks adding one more person to feel sorry for.’

“Kathy can ooze all those qualities, but she’s endearing at the same time.”

In the pilot, Harriet “Harry” Korn, 60 years old and bored to distraction with her job, is fired from her tony Cincinnati law firm and forced to start over. That means setting up a new storefront office in an abandoned shoe store on the rough side of town.

For Bates, the part of a burnt-out corporate drone fit like the glass slipper fit Cinderella. She insisted that Kelley not change a word, and to continue to call the character Harry.

“I really liked that she was rumpled, that she loves to say ‘no,’ and that she doesn’t care if people like her,” says Bates, who was born and bred in Memphis. “When I can escape the constraints of the Southern manners I grew up with, I think I’m a lot like Harry.”

Which means that her character has no time for Jimmy Choos and Pradas, boxes of which line the walls of her new law firm, Harriet’s Law and Fine Shoes. The shoes will be for sale, dispensed alongside the legal advice. Kelley says it was a deliberate decision to use shoes as a metaphor.

“At its core, this series is about the disparity of wealth in the United States. I don’t think there’s anything more visceral than a shoe store,” Kelley says. “Some of these things go for a thousand dollars, and this is footwear, for God’s sake. Only in America can people be starving and yet pass by someone wearing $800 shoes.”

But “Harry’s Law” is also about a woman having a rebirth, something else Bates can relate to. “I have fantasies all the time about doing something different,” she says. “Everything from singing to veterinary medicine. But at my age, I find myself still doing this, so I guess I must enjoy it.”

She was in New York City with friends when she first read the pilot script, and surprised herself by signing on a day later.

“I had two very close friends with me when I was reading the screenplay,” Bates says, “two young men who are really with it. And they said, ‘Yes, you’ve got to do this.’ ”

Bates is no stranger to television, having paid her dues on soaps such as “One Life to Live.” But her forays to the small screen have usually been for high-profile cable movies such as HBO’s “The Late Shift,” in which she played Jay Leno’s manager, Helen Kushnick, or for guest-starring roles on existing series such as “Six Feet Under,” and “The Office.”

Even so, Bates admits that playing the lead on a weekly dramatic series knocked the wind out of her.

“It was a real battle at the beginning,” she says. “It moves fast. There’s no time to breathe. And then you’re working with a different director every eight days, so there were a lot of challenges I found very difficult to swallow at first. It took me the better part of twelve shows to feel comfortable.”

Now, she says, she’s up to speed and hoping for a re-order so she can get back to the grind. Were they lucky to get her, this movie star slumming in series television?

“Yes,” she says. “I think they were lucky to get me. And I think I’m lucky to have them.”

Harry’s Law

Monday, 10 p.m., NBC