We have very few shows about lawyers/law here because our system is simple (and boring?) enough that there isn't much to make anything interesting about.
IANAL but have taken some intro level course (that usually starts with don't think anything from American shows applies).
1: It's rooted in civil law so the written laws(and their precursor political discussions) are first considered, laws are thus fairly broadly written with specifications where needed. So precedents are mostly only used to disambiguate gray areas in terms of applicability or conflicts between laws. (but precedents rulings are in turn are meant to rely on the precursor political discussions before courts can take their own authority on any subject).
2: Intent is given significance, so 2 parties can enter into fairly "sloppily written" contracts that will be legally binding as long as the intent of the contract is clear, they're signed and doesn't violate any laws (there is law specifically targets obviously unfair contracts, but also other laws that regulate specific areas).
3: Criminal prosecution at the primary level is in front of 3 judges, one professional head judge with law degree that knows laws and 2 "laymen" to represent people in general (usually politically appointed to reflect the people via elections), no juries as the role those serve is handled by the laymen judges.
You didn't mention the most important difference: Nordic countries have "free evidence exhibition", meaning that anything and everything is allowed to be presented as evidence in the courts and the judges have total liberty in deciding on how to weigh evidence.
This means evidence such as hearsay or illegally obtained evidence is given the same consideration as real evidence. Resulting many times that the court can sentence an accused that everybody "knows" is guilty, and other times resulting in mind bogglingly insane verdicts.
Another big difference: No plea deals. Which is something very strange about the American justice system.
You're right, I mostly mostly pointed out civil rather than criminal law differences since that was what I've gotten studies on and concerned myself with due to having a contracting business.
As for the mind-boggling verdicts those seem to more often stem from the politically appointed judges from the media reporting.
The plea deals part is interesting since it's been more frequently bought up to become legal in relation to combating the rising organized crime (but the perverse incentive problem seems to have kept those discussions from going further so far).
I think the most reasonable way is to offer a punishment discount -after- a guilty verdict for those criminals who offer to give up the bigger fish. Having a deal before that just seems wrong, for criminal cases.
It's actually pretty boring in the US as well. As an attorney, it's always interesting to see US law school applications increase if a "sexy" legal drama becomes popular on TV. I feel bad for those applicants, because 99% of legal work is not as exciting as on TV, the lawyers don't dress as well as they do on TV, and they definitely do not look as attractive as the ones on TV. :-)
One serious question is how much precedent research is grounded in possible reality? The "unexpeced-precedent-that-throws-off-the-opposition" and "old-or-savant-legal-expert-who-knows-them-all" tropes in media seems to hinge on them being important, and reading legal rulings on business cases (like those historic ones regarding Nintendo and Sega copy protections or EFF ones) does seem to put some weight on them?
As a juror I saw a Johnny Cochran-like attorney defend against a Marcia Clark-like prosecutor, in the early 21st century. The judge was nothing like Judge Ito though. There was a car chase, there were videos from the scenes, and DNA evidence was criticized unsuccessfully by an “expert.” Isn’t that what they have on LA Law?
IANAL but have taken some intro level course (that usually starts with don't think anything from American shows applies).
1: It's rooted in civil law so the written laws(and their precursor political discussions) are first considered, laws are thus fairly broadly written with specifications where needed. So precedents are mostly only used to disambiguate gray areas in terms of applicability or conflicts between laws. (but precedents rulings are in turn are meant to rely on the precursor political discussions before courts can take their own authority on any subject).
2: Intent is given significance, so 2 parties can enter into fairly "sloppily written" contracts that will be legally binding as long as the intent of the contract is clear, they're signed and doesn't violate any laws (there is law specifically targets obviously unfair contracts, but also other laws that regulate specific areas).
3: Criminal prosecution at the primary level is in front of 3 judges, one professional head judge with law degree that knows laws and 2 "laymen" to represent people in general (usually politically appointed to reflect the people via elections), no juries as the role those serve is handled by the laymen judges.