Having clearly dispensed with earlier plans to give up acting and go into law, Jerry O’Connell has just signed to co-star in new NBC drama.

Married since July of 2007 to ‘Hideous Betty’ alumnus, Rebecca Romijin, the 35-year ancient New Yorker has signed to play a main role in “Rex Is Not Your Lawyer,” which concerns a hot-shot legal whiz from Chicago played by David Tennant, who suddenly gets panic attacks if he gets near a court-room, so he coaches his clients to plead their cases instead.

Jerry will play ‘an ambitious but excellent-natured lawyer’ who was doomed to be second-banana to Rex until Rex lost the plot. And life gets even weirder when he falls for Rex’s fiancee, played by ‘Mad Men’ regular, Abigail Spencer.

The Hollywood Reporter tells us Jerry’s role was first offered to Sendhil Ramamurthy, but he dropped out to focus on his work in ‘Heroes’ instead.

The new show, of which NBC has currently only ordered a pilot, also sees the welcome return of former ‘CSI’ guest, Jeffrey Tambor, and Jane Curtin, best known for her role in ‘3rd Rock from the Sun’ which closed in 2001.

It should also be a welcome relief for Jerry, whose latest film suffers the career-wrecking title, “Piranha 3-D.”

The new show is now in production, so we’ll have to wait and just see if it flies…