Jorja Fox also returns to the crime drama for season opener.

As Sara Sidle on “C.S.I.: Crime Scene Investigation,” Jorja Fox spent eight seasons trying to solve murders. She finally gets to see the other side of the law with her guest- starring role on Sunday’s episode of Lifetime’s “Drop Dead Diva.” The Lifetime legal series is about a self-centered beauty who dies and returns to Earth in the body of a plus-size attorney (Brooke Elliott).

Fox plays a woman - from Fresno, as it happens - who 20 years ago became an unknowing accomplice to a robbery gone fatally bad. Instead of waiting to be charged with the murder, she went into hiding. When her secret life is about to be revealed, she turns to Jane Bingum (Elliott) for help.

“I love playing the other side of the law. But I just kept wondering if I could pull this kind of role off,” Fox says during a lunch break telephone interview from the set of “CSI.” After a yearlong hiatus, Fox returns this season to the role she played since the crime series launched in 2000.

The call for both roles came at the same time. Fox was interested in the “Diva” guest-starring spot because it was so different from the parts she is usually offered. She has built up an impressive career playing strong women on “CSI,” “The West Wing” and “ER.” The demands of playing those tough roles for so many years led her to take the “CSI” break.

She calls the “Diva” offer a “perfect storm.” She had wanted to work with Lifetime, it was a chance to be in a romantic comedy and she was reunited with Josh Berman, the former “CSI” writer and producer who is now an executive producer on “Diva.”

The call surprised her because the role is a 180- degree turn from her part on “CSI.” The last time Fox played someone on the wrong side of the law was in the first episode of the short-lived 1995 series “Courthouse.” She said “yes” right away to the chance to stretch as an actor.

She also liked the message of the show and her episode in particular.

“It is never too late to go back and try and start life over. The show talks about how you should never give up and there is a place for second chances,” Fox says.

Fox says she thought about starting over in a new career while on break from “CSI,” but decided she was having too much fun to walk away from acting - something she’d wanted all her life.

Fox only decided to take a break from the series when she started to feel burned out, she says.

“My feet were pretty heavy and the last thing I wanted was the audience to sense that. Even when I left, I knew I would love to go back and visit the role,” Fox says. “So when I decided to go back it was easy to put the vest back on.”

Whether this is a temporary or permanent visit hasn’t been revealed. Fox will be on the season opener of “CSI” when it airs Sept. 24. She offers no details of her return other than to say it will “blow minds.” As for how long she is back, Fox jokes she has to pick up a visitor’s pass each time she shows up at the Universal Studios lot where the series films.