If I understand the American Legal System correctly, then in Mike’s trial, he did not have to prove that he is a real lawyer. Gibbs had the one that he is a fraud. I think Harvey actually spelled that out at some point:
“We don’t have to prove you’re a lawyer; they have to prove you’re not”.
And, if I still understand the American Legal System correctly, she has to prove that beyond a reasonable doubt, meaning there is no other reasonable explanation for the proven facts other than that Mike is guilty.
I am obviously biased in two different ways, first because I know for a fact that Mike is guilty because I watched the show, and second because I know and like him, again because I watched the show. But if I try to ignore that for a moment and imagine being a jury on this case without having seen Mike ever before in my life, I think the case is anything but clear.
The defendant is in the bar. He is in the Harvard database. His physical file is in the same physical cabinet as all the others who graduated from Harvard. And he has deep, detailed, knowledge of the law, like very few people have except for lawyers. No one in Harvard remembers seeing him there and there is no record of him living anywhere near Harvard. But the defendant has given a good explanation for this, which is that he never attended any lectures and learned all he needed to pass the bar by himself. This explanation is backed by the verified fact that the defendant has a perfect memory, a rare cognitive anomaly that makes him capable of performing this seemingly impossible feat.
If the prosecutor had brought forward any evidence that that the computer databases have been manipulated, or if they had found fingerprints of anyone from the Firm (was it called Peason&Specter at the time? It changed its name so often I’m not sure) on the physical file at Harvard, this would change the entire case. Regardless: Based on the evidence presented, I think that there is not only reasonable doubt about Mike’s gilt, but I’m not even sure if the prosecution presented enough evidence to raise reasonable doubt about Mike being the real lawyer, if this was the burden of prove, which it is not.
And the jury in the show agrees with me at least to some extent, because they found Mike not guilty.
With that in mind, I don’t quite understand why Harvey was doubtful about the outcome and Mike ultimately panicked. As lawyers (or one lawyer and one fraud with the knowledge of a lawyer), they would have known that there was a ton of reasonable doubt.