"Lost Reputation" is the fourteenth season premiere of the police procedural television series Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and the 296th overall episode. It originally aired on NBC on September 26, 2012. In the episode, the Special Victims Unit detectives try to stop a growing scandal when Captain Cragen (Dann Florek) is arrested for the murder of an escort, Carissa Gibson (Pippa Black). Meanwhile, Detective Nick Amaro (Danny Pino) has to juggle trying to solve the case against Cragen without losing his family in the process.

The episode was written by showrunner/executive producer Warren Leight and Julie Martin and was directed by Michael Slovis. The episode picks up where the thirteenth season ended with "Rhodium Nights", Cragen waking up next to a dead escort and the fallout from that, majority of the guest stars from "Rhodium Nights" appearing in "Lost Reputation".

"Lost Reputation" earned generally positive reviews, critics praising the continuation of the storyline, with Paget Brewster's and Adam Baldwin's guest appearances, as well as praising stars Mariska Hargitay and Danny Pino. According to the Nielsen ratings, the episode's original broadcast with "Above Suspicion" following was watched by an average of 7.19 million total viewers and received a 2.1/6% share in the 18–49 age demographic, up slightly from the season thirteen finale.

The Special Victims Unit is reeling from the fallout after Captain Cragen (Dann Florek) wakes up with a dead escort - a potential witness in an SVU case - in his bed. Tensions run high at the precinct as the detectives contend with Bureau Chief ADA Paula Foster's (Paget Brewster) investigation of Cragen, who is eventually picked up and hauled to jail, Detective Benson (Mariska Hargitay) determined to get down to the truth and prove Cragen's innocence. The unit also has to deal with the arrival of a tough new captain, Steven Harris (Adam Baldwin), who is trying to shape the unit up, telling Tutuola (Ice-T) he is violating the NYPD dress code requirements. Harris also warns the detectives not to investigate Cragen's case, assigning Tutuola, Munch (Richard Belzer), and Rollins (Kelli Giddish) a case involving a celebrity flashing his genitals at a hotel.

Detective Nick Amaro (Danny Pino) is determined to solve the case against Cragen as well, his wife Maria (Laura Benanti) leaving him for a job in Washington D.C., taking their daughter with her. Amaro takes his focus off of his family and puts it on Brian Cassidy (Dean Winters), who treads an increasingly narrow line as an undercover cop in Bart Ganzel's (Peter Jacobson) escort organization, Amaro decides to take a different approach in getting answers out of Cassidy, Munch and Benson assuring Amaro that Cassidy is on the level. Meanwhile, the evidence against Cragen mounts as Detective Benson tries to get BC ADA Foster to see that the captain is being set up.

"Lost Reputation" was written by executive producer/showrunner Warren Leight with Julie Martin, who is promoted to executive producer, replacing Ted Kotcheff, as of this episode. The episode was also directed by Michael Slovis. Ed Zuckerman, who was co-executive producer on the original Law & Order, replaces David Matthews. Ice-T announced on Twitter that filming on the fourteenth season began on Monday, July 23, 2012.

In May 2012, showrunner/executive producer Warren Leight said that the story line for season fourteen will pick up where the thirteenth-season finale left off at, discussions of a two-part episode up at the time, "In fact, there were a number of scenes we shot that didn't make it into this cut that may make it into the next one. ... It's good to know who did it and why, and who's pulling the strings." On July 30, 2012, Leight confirmed the season premiere would be a two-part episode and Leight told Today, after talking about the returning guest stars from "Rhodium Nights", "We may want to do more of that this season," he said. The issue, he pointed out, is "how do you distinguish the 294th episode of 'SVU' from the others? I wanted to give people a reason to come back to season 14. The show deserves a good cliffhanger, and I loved reading people's responses after the finale ended -- 'Did they just do that?'" Leight continued, "People have us in a box," he said, "and I want them to see that the show is a little more adventurous than they might have remembered."

In an interview with Xfinity, showrunner/EP Warren Leight said, "We’re going to do something different for "Law & Order." We’re going to follow up. So the season ended with an escort dead in Cragen’s bed, and it seems like he has no idea how she got there. Where we got lucky was, quite by chance, NBC called and said they wanted two episodes for our first night back. They didn’t necessarily mean a two-parter, they just meant two separate episodes. Now we more or less had permission do a three-episode story, which is unheard of in the "Law & Order" world. So basically by the end of the day, we’ve essentially made a movie, a three-act movie." Leight told TV Guide that it took 24 days to film all the episodes ("Rhodium Nights" included), Leight said "There are high stakes. Not only is there a dead escort in Cragen's bed, but obviously there's a lot of tension between Amaro and Benson. We kept a lot of plates spinning and it was just a thrill to get to work in a longer form, For Dann Florek I don't think it was too much fun. I think he prefers a tailored suit to an orange jumpsuit."