WESTLAKE VILLAGE, Calif. — The attorney who left Phil Spector's murder trial to play a television judge after being demoted as lead counsel said Thursday he will be back in court at the music legend's side next week and plans to have an important role for the defense in the case's finale.

"Phillip wants me to come Monday and he wants me to sum up," New York attorney Bruce Cutler said during a break in shooting his new syndicated show, "Jury Duty."

Cutler, who has not been in the courtroom since June 21, says the pop music producer has tapped him to give one of two closing arguments for the defense. Another attorney on the six-lawyer team will speak about forensic evidence while Cutler delivers an argument about the nonscientific evidence related to the 2003 shooting of actress Lana Clarkson, he said.

Except for that summation, however, Cutler's television shooting schedule will continue to dictate his presence at the trial. The lawyer is free to return to the defense table next week because "Jury Duty," a half-hour program in which Cutler presides as a trio of celebrities decides small-claims cases, is on hiatus.

When the show resumes taping July 30, Cutler will depart the real courtroom for the "Jury Duty" studios and remain there until filming is finished for the year Aug. 17.

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Vincent Dymon, the show's executive producer, said Cutler has told him closing arguments are unlikely to occur before the show wraps up for the season, but if they do, the program will shut down to allow him to attend Spector's trial.

"If he has to sum up, he will take the two days and sum up, and we will extend production for two days, which is no big deal," Dymon said.

Cutler has not seen any of the defense case put before jurors so far, and his filming schedule makes it doubtful he will see more than a few of Spector's witnesses.

Cutler insists, though, that he has kept abreast of the case by reading transcripts of testimony and speaking nightly to his 67-year-old client. He said he does not think Spector will take the stand in his own defense.

"I would be surprised and shocked if he did," Cutler said.

According to the attorney, Spector believes the defense has put on a persuasive forensic case for his innocence.

"He feels very confident in the science," he said.

His assessment of the possibility of Spector testifying underscores the prickly relationship between Cutler and the other attorneys. Just a day earlier in open court, another lawyer for Spector, Roger Rosen, left open the possibility that the defendant could testify.

Cutler acknowledged there is a rift and implied that Spector was the bridge over that chasm.

"We understand each other," he said of Spector.

Waving his hand toward the studio where employees call him "Judge Cutler" as they rush around in headsets arranging cameras, studio audience members and celebrity jurors, Cutler said, "People are nice here. I'm having fun."

He contrasted that with the two months he spent at the trial.

"Do you know what it's like to walk into the well of the courtroom and not have anyone say 'hello' to you?" he said with a shake of his head.

Cutler began representing Spector in 2004 and was referred to as the lead attorney by the judge and other lawyers when the trial began in April. He stumbled in his opening statement, however, after a last-minute change in prosecution strategy left him stunned and admitting he was unprepared to address the jury. Two weeks later, he faltered again attempting his first cross-examination of a witness. The judge upbraided him in front of the jury for yelling at the woman. He was largely silent in the courtroom after that.

Spector faces 15 years to life in prison if convicted of murdering Clarkson, 40.