Novak is somewhere on the border of brunette and redhead, and as portrayed by Diane Neal, she's a consistently frustrated-to-the-point-of-sour-looking lawyer who exploded onto the show. Unlike Serena Southerlyn (lesbian), Alexandra Borgia (murdered), Alexandra Cabot (faked death by drug-lord-induced car explosion to go into witness protection), Connie Rubirosa (boring), Novak is the sole female ADA who isn't defined by a vulnerability that ends up finishing her career.* She dated a mentally ill man in graduate school, something that makes her a more compassionate person, but makes her stronger rather than weak. Rather, she's ultimately done in by a surplus of toughness: she's disbarred when she lies to try to put a child rapist behind bars.
Not that I don't like looking at pretty people, but I appreciate that Neal is less conventionally pretty than the actresses who play many of the interchangeable lawyer babes on the show. The sharp cut of her eyebrows emphasize her character's aggressiveness. She's got full, pretty cheeks, and an unusually wide mouth, but she's good at sharpening her eyes to contradict them. It wasn't until I started doing image searches for her that I realized how relaxed and open Neal can look: she's brought a lot of facial physicality to the role.
But I think what I like best of all is that Novak, more than any of the other ADAs, seems to exemplify some of the challenges for ambitious professional women. She has ideas about how to do her job, and she wants to execute them. Contrary to the stereotype of women, she's not always a team player: in fact, she can be quite the individualist. And she's got a female mentor, the fabulous Judith Light playing the equally tough Judge Elizabeth Donnelly, who ultimately is responsible for her disbarment. I don't know that Novak is an explicitly feminist character. But I do know that she feels real, and I love her character for it.
*Courtney B. Vance is awesome as ADA Ron Carver, but he's an exception to the pretty young things trotted out to prosecute crimes, just as Sam Waterston is.