West Wing reunion on The Grinder: Richard Schiff to guest-star alongside Rob Lowe

A West-erly wind is blowing through The Grinder. … They’re really Wing-ing it on The Grinder. … The Grinder is going from A to Ziegl — okay, okay, we’ll stop. You get it. Two West Wing veterans will reunite on an episode of The Grinder.

Richard Schiff, who starred as White House communications director Toby Ziegler on NBC’s The West Wing, will pop up in an episode of the Fox comedy slated to air in early January, EW has exclusively learned. Schiff will appear in the show within the show as Gordon Stutz, the blunt co-founder of the legal firm Stutz & Grinder from the hit legal drama The Grinder, on which Dean (Rob Lowe) starred as Mitch Grinder. Gordon has been Mitch’s mentor and partner, and when Mitch leaves the firm after the two have a falling-out, Gordon tries to reel him back in — using whatever tactics he can.

“He’s a ballbuster but he’s also a father figure,” says Grinder co-creator Andrew Mogel of Gordon, while co-creator Jarrad Paul adds: “He taught Mitch everything he knows.”

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Lowe, of course, played Toby’s colleague Sam Seaborn in the first four seasons of West Wing.

Schiff joins a roster of Grinder guests that includes Jason Alexander, Timothy Olyphant, Arielle Kebbel, Christina Applegate, Emmanuelle Chriqui, and Efren Ramirez. He is working overtime on TV these days; his 2015 credits include such shows as Manhattan, The Affair, Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp, Ballers, and Rogue.

The Grinder was given a full-season order last week.