Family Law

After losing her husband and clients all in one day, Attorney Lynn Holt sets out to rebuild her life. With some help from Danni Lipton, an ambitious almost junior partner, Lynn decides to rebuild her law practice by subleasing her offices to two other lawyers, Rex Weller and Randi King. Lynn's first new client is a former drug addict trying to win back custody of her children.

Lynn helps Rex represent a couple seeking damages against the doctor who neglected to tell them that their child would be born with Down Syndrome; Danni turns marriage counselor to a couple divorcing; Randi reveals a dark chapter in her past; Lynn sets out to show Michael how hard it is to juggle a career and parenting.

Lynn tries the case of a woman seeking custody of her children from their racist father; Danni hopes to rekindle the flames with her new client, who is also an old boyfriend; Rex represents a man injured by exploding beached whale blubber; Sweet memories abound when Lynn and Michael start dividing their property.

Randi represents a correctional officer charged with raping an inmate. However the case hits too close to home since she knew the officer when she was in prison; Lynn starts to represent a famous young actor in a divorce case; Danni's relationship with Don becomes more complicated.

Lynn helps an old friend deal with his troubled daughter, who's created a list of people she wants to kill; The woman Michael left Lynn for comes looking for a job; Danni and Don's relationship heats up; Danni learns that Randi is getting some ""attention"" from a surprising source.

Lynn represents a couple desperate to get custody of their granddaughter, even though it goes against their deceased daughter's wishes; Rex's mentally ill older brother breezes into his life after a two year absence; Danni represents an obnoxious actor suing a paper for ruining his career after they claimed he was dead; Randi and Andres's relationship heats up.

Danni and Rex take opposites sides of a case involving kids on a soccer team and their overzealous parents; Andres asks Randi's help in representing a friend who has money coming to him from a wealthy former client. But her testing of his skills makes Andres very uncomfortable; Lynn finds herself with a moral dilemma when she represents an Afghani couple trying to stay in the United States even though he is wanted for burglary in his homeland.

Over Lynn's objections, Danni represents an L.A. Laker being sued for child support; Rex represents a man who confesses to bombing the Federal Building 30 years ago; Randi goes all out to make a deadbeat client pay his bill.

Lynn and Michael square off in court in a battle between a cancer-stricken employee of a lingerie company and the owners that fired her shortly after her mastectomy; Rex represents the inept son of a professional thief.

Rex defends a woman accused of murdering her one child and abusing the other; Randi represents the ""spokesman"" for Mr. Chips potato chips when he's fired for being too old; Lynn goes ""trolling"" for clients.

Lynn is pitted against her old acquaintance, cutthroat lawyer Joe Celano, in a case involving a child's adopted parents and the Guatemalan woman he was taken from; Danni's reaction to Lynn's partnership offer unnerves Lynn.

Lynn is faced with a moral and legal dilemma when her client in a child custody case confesses to molesting his daughter; Randi tries the potentially ground-breaking case of a man suing his bartender for serving him drinks that led to his having a one-night stand which destroyed his marriage; the attorneys decide to expand their practices by forming a partnership.

Lynn tries valiantly to help a dying friend obtain a divorce from her politician husband, who is trying to stall the proceedings because her death will give him the sympathy vote in the upcoming election; Lynn makes Joe a partner over Rex and Randi's objections, while the partnership decision regarding Danni comes to a head.

Rex fights to get his schizophrenic brother released from the county mental hospital; Danni and Randi take opposite sides in an ugly custody case involving an emotionally disturbed 5-year-old. However the case takes a suprising turn when it's learned that the child was switched at birth with another.

Danni is appointed case advocate for a 9-year old boy. But when she learns he is being brutally abused by his foster father, her pleas to Children's Services for an investigation go unheard; Lynn represents grandparents seeking custody of their delinquent teenaged grandson when his parents send him overseas to a prison-like boarding school.

Danni & Joe bring a class-action suit against the Dept. of Children's Services; Lynn and Rex compete for the same caregiver.

Rex defends his schizophrenic brother against a murder charge when he pushes someone into the path of an incoming car. But the job is made more difficult when his brother insists that he did nothing wrong and won't let him plead insanity; Lynn and Randi go to the INS in order to get Andres readmitted to the U.S. and end up learning a shocking secret.

Joe and Lynn butt heads in the case of a hospital's decision to drop one man from the kidney recipient list and replace him with one of their doctors; Danni represents a couple trying to keep custody of their chimpanzee; Randi and Andres have trouble dealing with his return to the firm.

When Andres attacks a man his mother claims is the Chilean army colonel who killed her husband and tortured her 27 years ago, the firm sets out to prove that the man is a notorious war criminal.

When Randi helps a battered woman get a restraining order against her husband, the Dept. of Children's Services decides that the woman is an unfit mother because she chose to stay with her abusive husband; Lynn is torn between acting as Cassie's mother or her friend; Danni gets another shot at becoming partner.

Lynn represents a cancer patient who wants to be able to receive experimental medication banned by the FDA; Raphael again pleads with Danni to adopt him; two new associates join the firm; and Joe's overextending himself working on pro bono cases has a tragic consequence.

Randy and Emily represent a former drug addict who is trying to reclaim custody of the children she signed away; Danni continues in her quest to adopt Rapheal; Despite everyone's objections, Joe continues his pro bono work.

Lynn and Viveca try to help a 14 year old girl who was arrested for spray painting hate messages on buildings; Emily represents parents who want to keep their cerebral palsy afflicted daughter out of public high school against her wish; Joe uses Naoise to help him do pro bono work.

Joe helps a 16-year old boy get custody of his two younger brothers; Naoise defends a teenager who is charged with misdemeanor vandalism when he uses a slingshot to get rid of a drug dealer in his neighborhood; Randi asks Lynn to be Annie's guardian should anything happen to her.

When Joe is badly burned in a fire started by a teen who was trying to make drugs, Rex goes after the publisher of the book the boy was using; Emily hires a private investigator to test the fidelity of her client's husband---something Randi finds reprehensible. However, to her suprise, Randi finds herself attracted to the man.

Lynn fights to help a couple retain custody of their 14 children when DCF decides they can not adequately care for them; Randi represents a man seeking to maintain the amount of child support he receives from his ex-wife.

Lynn reluctantly helps her neighbor with his child support settlement with his mistress while keeping it a secret from his wife; Joe and Viveca help a mother whose son was taken away after she spanked him in a department store.

The firm takes on the case of an Arab-American, who works for the Department of Transportation, charged with espionage after he takes home a disk containing classified information.

Randi helps a mentally unstable woman charged with murder after her children die after waiting in a locked car; Joe represents a woman whose kids were taken away because she left them alone at home while she worked; Rex and Lynn's relationship takes a suprising turn.

Emily aids a woman who wants a divorce on the grounds that her husband committed adultery by carrying on a relationship with a woman over the Internet; Lynn defends a 40-year-old friend who is arrested for having sex with a 15-year-old boy; Randi starts dating a judge and then discovers he has a secret past that could end his career