Becker begins the day dealing with some irate clients and finds himself at the wrong end of a gun; Melman discovers a dead partner; Kuzak finds a creative way to see that justice is done when he defends an unsavory client accused of rape and assault on a terminally ill woman; Brackman challenges Kelsey about taking on an insurance case; the firm takes on a new associate; a Chaney eulogy takes a shocking turn; Becker opens the eyes of a woman who mistakenly thinks she has a good divorce settlement; Perkins's marital problems become public knowledge; Kuzak encounters a judge who takes traffic violations seriously; Kelsey propositions Markowitz.
Kuzak pursues a very attractive deputy district attorney, Grace Van Owen, even though she's engaged to marry the man managing her campaign for a seat on the bench; Perkins is beaten by her drunken husband after she files for divorce and sole custody of their son; Kelsey continues to clash with Brackman, as well as McKenzie, over the insurance case until her hardball tactics succeed in earning a windfall fee for the firm; Sifuentes comes to regret the plea agreement he negotiates for a man who took justice into his own hands after watching his son's killer freed on a technicality; Weston is infuriated when Becker sandbags her chance to be offered a position as an associate after he tires of their affair; Markowitz courts a hesitant Kelsey; feeling passed over for promotion by Sifuentes's hiring, Taylor quits; Perkins becomes the default winner of an associate position; Chaney's will brings out the beast in Brackman.
Sifuentes is outraged when he learns that the motive behind an invitation to dinner at the Brackman house was to enlist his aid in perpetrating an immigration fraud; Kuzak continues to pursue Van Owen; Perkins is devastated when her ex-husband kidnaps their son, and quickly becomes frantic when it appears that the police cannot help her find him; Kuzak discovers that his client's suit against an amusement park for injuries his son suffered is based on a fraudulent claim; Markowitz fears that he will lose his job when he declines to run a scam on an alcoholic I.R.S. agent to mitigate his client's tax bill, but luck is on his side when the adverse I.R.S. ruling turns into a financial coup after his client's wife sues for divorce.
McKenzie's disappointment in the greedy law school students whose class he addresses leads him to offer a clerkship to a student who appears to be more socially responsible; in defending a young teenager who murdered her abusive brother, Sifuentes suspects that the abuse may have begun with the girl's father; Kelsey forces Perkins to realize that she may never see Eric again; Van Owen is furious when she discovers that Kuzak has arranged a lunch date with her fiance to scope out his competition; Kelsey finds out about Markowitz's secret life; McKenzie suggests a course of action after Hubbard expresses her frustration with their business and personal relationship; a lovesick Lewis fights to keep his princess, despite Becker's advice; Van Owen pays Kuzak a late night visit and reveals her true feelings.
Kuzak fights for his terminally ill client's right to be cryogenically preserved after death; Becker whets his appetite for entertainment law when he brokers an extremely favorable divorce settlement for his movie producer client; Markowitz and Kelsey are offered partnerships in the firm; Melman takes Becker to task over his romantic entanglements with clients; Kelsey represents a man fighting to keep his toy company from being taken over by a corporate giant; refusing to give up on the woman he loves, Kuzak goes ape and disrupts Van Owen's wedding.
Van Owen faces hairy jokes from her colleagues and the anger of her ex-fiance after bailing out on her wedding; Kuzak represents a television news anchor suing for sex discrimination and wrongful termination when her employer fires her after having second thoughts about the series of reports on her breast cancer surgery that they assigned her to produce; Sullivan is busted for dealing drugs out of the office; Taylor successfully represents a tenant's association suing Brackman for being a slumlord, and gives his former boss a taste of his own medicine when Brackman threatens to prolong the case with a series of appeals to avoid paying the judgment levied against him; Hubbard applies to law school; Kelsey does business with a very agreeable banker offering excellent terms on her partnership buy-in loan; Brackman faces a stunning and humiliating defeat when he foolishly decides to take on McKenzie in the partners' meeting.
Kuzak slyly sticks Sifuentes with a dog of a case, but it's Sifuentes who's sitting pretty after he discovers the teeth in the matter, and pulls out an unexpected win; Abby rebuffs an admirer; Becker's gamble on the Mishkin fee agreement pays off financially but dooms the relationship; after Kuzak wins the discrimination case, he discovers that his client had an ulterior motive for not accepting a generous settlement offer; Brackman takes a new approach to life and dealing with people in the wake of his double barreled defeats in the court room and the partners' meeting; Becker is oblivious to Melman's feelings for him.
Van Owen's ex-fiance gets his revenge by humiliating her during a campaign appearance, thus sabotaging her race for the bench; when Kelsey shakes a trust's money tree to benefit the homeless, she also creates a windfall for the firm and herself; an ugly divorce case hits too close to home when Abby tries her hand at marital law; Sifuentes adds to his chair collection as he settles a slander case against a prosecutor who took losing the Sullivan drug case on a technicality too personally and too publicly; Van Owen experiences an extremely embarrassing case of mistaken simian identity.
Becker, Markowitz and Kelsey bicker over who will inherit Chaney's office; Van Owen prosecutes a man charged with the mercy killing of his terminally ill lover; to Kelsey's undying gratitude, Markowitz learns the secret of a serial bigamist's success with women as Becker and Markowitz represent the man's eleven wives in their divorce actions; Abby is devastated when a dead boy matching Eric's description is mistakenly cremated before he can be identified.
Kuzak gets nightmares over handling an appeal for a man sentenced to death; Van Owen helps Gilliam get a reprieve for Appleton; Melman comforts Becker when his parents try to put him in the middle of their divorce dispute; Sifuentes resigns after McKenzie sandbags his representation of a woman who could potentially embarrass one of McKenzie's clients; Perkins rescues a stray dog who wins over Brackman's heart; Van Owen intercedes for an inebriated Kuzak who's about to be arrested for disrespecting the police.
An increasingly unstable Hershberg asks Kuzak to take over the case of a woman who shot a police officer; Rogoff reassigns Van Owen to night court as punishment for helping Appleton; Perkins makes a deal with the devil to have her son returned to her safely; things get heated in another court when the men of McKenzie, Brackman engage in a contentious basketball game with a rival firm; Markowitz redecorates Chaney's office and gives it to Kelsey as a Christmas present; after McKenzie apologizes, Sifuentes agrees to return to the firm.
La Rosa digs up the ammunition Kelsey needs to succeed in representing an inventor in a contract dispute over patent royalties; Kuzak is horrified as he witnesses a severely depressed Hershberg commit suicide in court; Becker gets caught in a compromising position when he's propositioned by a client's soon-to-be ex-wife; Perkins spends Christmas with her son; when his pre-trial depositions reveal that the Emmons case is a winner, Kuzak is able to negotiate a favorable settlement for his client.
Overburdened with Hershberg's caseload, and haunted with guilt over his death, Kuzak snaps at his colleagues, pays a heavy price for the way he handles a manslaughter case, and ruins Van Owen's plans for the weekend; Sifuentes's whiz kid client develops a crush on Melman as he fixes the firm's malfunctioning telephone system; Kelsey wins a major account for the firm and faces a jealous Markowitz, who correctly guesses that the client has more than a professional interest in his new attorney; after initially spurning Sifuentes's offer to help with Hershberg's caseload, Kuzak finally enlists his aid, allowing Sifuentes to talk the judge and prosecutor into a sweetheart deal for the client.
McKenzie gets Kuzak sprung from jail; after Brackman's wife discovers his infidelity and serves him with divorce papers, he begs her to take him back when he discovers that she's represented by Lisa Weston, who intends to go after a share of the partnership's profits in the settlement; Sifuentes confronts a judge after Putnam's computer analysis uncovers a racist bent to the jurist's sentencing determinations; Markowitz's jealousy prompts him to keep too close an eye on Kelsey's relationship with Cromwell, which creates friction between the attorneys; McKenzie represents a jurist friend who is arrested after taking desperate measures to resolve a deteriorating financial situation when the firm declines to offer him the partnership he seeks; Melman goes out to dinner with Putnam; Weston has it out with Becker over his mistreatment of her and discovers to her discomfort how much they have in common.
The partners consider whether they should merge with a large New York firm; Kuzak and Van Owen bemoan the scheduling difficulties that keep them apart; McKenzie negotiates a sweetheart deal for Hood with the district attorney's office and the ethics board, but runs into opposition from his headstrong client; Perkins hits rough seas as she represents an outspoken grandmother in her maiden voyage in court; Kelsey angers Cromwell when she spurns his romantic advances and reaffirms her feelings for Markowitz; Becker gets his dream house by convincing a divorcing couple to reconcile and then lease him the house that's been the source of contention in their marriage.
Van Owen prosecutes a case of seminal importance; Becker comes to regret pushing a client beyond her limits after confronting her with her husband's infidelity despite her protests; in civil court, Sifuentes and Perkins represent a family nearly destroyed by the death of a child in a car accident; when Perkins can't find an eligible escort for her cousin's wedding, Van Owen fixes her up with Handleman, who eagerly agrees to the date.
When a pharmaceutical firm employs a jury consulting firm to assist him in a product liability suit, Kuzak becomes engaged in a contest of style over substance until he enlists Sifuentes's help in showing the client the error of not settling the case out of court; Melman and Becker come to a parting of the ways over her demand for a substantive raise; Sifuentes encourages Perkins to get back into the court room and represent a disabled man who may be incapable of forming the requisite criminal intent to commit the crime of which he is accused; Markowitz takes issue with Kelsey over the state of her finances when he agrees to do her tax returns, and makes a proposal that will improve both her cash flow and their relationship. Abby tests courtroom waters again as she defends the retarded Benny Stulwicz against robbery charges.
Becker is enthralled by the beautiful, but somewhat incompetent, secretary who's temping while Melman is on jury duty until he discovers that their relationship will never be anything but professional; Van Owen contemplates buying a gun after a gangbanger shoots her in the court house hallway in retaliation for her winning a death penalty case against a member of the shooter's gang; Melman stands up to a bully in the deliberation room and turns the tide of the verdict towards justice; Sifuentes hits it off with his new dentist and agrees to represent her in a malpractice suit, but their romance is doomed when she can't leave her work at the office; realizing that he can't survive professionally if Melman quits, Becker finally capitulates to her salary demands.
Sifuentes tries to snatch victory out of the jaws of defeat by responding to the advances made by an attractive juror after his elderly pot smoker client is found guilty, but soon comes to realize that his losing streak with women is continuing when she reveals her true colors; Brackman considers wearing a toupee when the prospect of aging starts to weigh on him heavily; Rogoff assigns Van Owen to desk duty as it becomes apparent that she's become more traumatized by the shooting than she's willing to admit; Melman provides a source of strength and comfort to a client struggling with his emotions during a painful divorce.
Kuzak faces a tough opponent in civil court when he represents a college student suing for damages after being raped; the ongoing conflict between Brackman and his litigious neighbor escalates after Perkins successfully represents Brackman in a nuisance suit over Sparky's behavior, leading to Sparky's demise and Brackman's arrest for assaulting his neighbor; Kelsey and Markowitz come into conflict when she gets a temporary case of cold feet about selling her condo; Becker continues to disparage Melman's relationship with Shacter.
Markowitz and Kuzak join forces to help a fisherman when the IRS confiscates his boat in a tax dispute; Sifuentes convinces Feldman to drop criminal assault charges against Brackman, but Kerris chokes on the deal; when Kuzak gives her an ultimatum after her substance abuse nearly gets her killed, Van Owen takes a leave of absence to deal with her recent trauma; Becker gets manipulated by a young model; McKenzie falls ill and requires surgery, the nature of which he refuses to indulge; Shacter takes Melman to Hawaii; Kelsey regrets convincing Markowitz to go backpacking when their trek through the hills gets disastrously under her skin.
Becker represents the wife of a children's television show host who sues her husband for divorce after catching him in bed with an unlikely partner; Brackman and Kerris finally settle their differences; Sifuentes begins to doubt his client's innocence in the death of her new baby after he sees her lash out in anger at her first child; Kuzak finally gets the IRS to admit their error in the Messer case, and then puts his money where his mouth is when the bank forecloses on the boat; Brackman pressures Becker to conclude the prenup negotiations for an influential client; McKenzie finally reveals the nature of his minor surgery; Kelsey and Markowitz become engaged and run off to Las Vegas for a quickie wedding, but the Elvis-impersonator minister at the wedding chapel sends them fleeing back to Los Angeles doubled over in laughter before they tie the knot; a healed and sober Van Owen returns home to Kuzak.
Kuzak takes a personal interest in representing a terminally ill smoker suing a tobacco company; Sifuentes's bad luck with women continues; Kelsey and Markowitz unsuccessfully seek out professional help to end their communication problems; Becker cozies up to his client's ex-wife to reach a divorce settlement; Sifuentes does the right thing when he turns over information that frees the man convicted of vandalizing his new car.
Brackman begins to get carried away over his judicial appointment until an insulting parrot puts him in his place; Kelsey successfully represents a psychiatrist being sued in civil court for not preventing the murder of one patient by another, and is horrified when her client later confesses to the crime to prevent her from pursuing her suspicions that the wrong man was convicted of the crime; Markowitz covers for Gianelli, protecting him from Brackman's wrath; a wealthy woman wins an evening with Becker in a bachelor charity auction, and intends to get her money's worth; McKenzie hires hotshot young attorney Jonathan Rollins over Brackman's reservations that meeting Rollins's salary demands will cause trouble with the other associates; Sifuentes faces an opponent skilled in manipulating the jury's guilt with ethically questionable antics when they go head to head in a product liability case.
Kelsey seeks the advice of outside counsel, Kuzak's former mentor Wendell Gleason, in resolving her ethical dilemma about Dr. Warren's guilt, but is none too appreciative when Gleason's terminal illness allows him to accomplish what she cannot; Becker's ardor for Hollander turns to ice when she starts discussing marriage; after the jury hands Sifuentes a defeat in the product liability case, the judge threatens to reverse the finding, prompting the attorneys to reach a settlement, as well as a new-found respect for each other's abilities; Perkins solves a problem for a dying Mrs. Stulwicz as well as the firm when she convinces Brackman to hire Benny Stulwicz as the firm's messenger; Kelsey and Markowitz come into conflict after she takes Brackman on for suggesting that Markowitz resign before the wedding; in commiserating with Gianelli when he feels compelled to join his family's business after failing the bar exam, Perkins jumps to a completely erroneous conclusion about the exact nat
Kelsey forces a client to clean up his act after she discovers that his company is knowingly dumping carcinogens into a local water supply; the jealousy bug takes a big bite out of Van Owen when Kuzak's ex-wife comes back into his life; Kleinberg's disgust over her obnoxious and ungrateful client doesn't keep her from winning the case, but is enough to make her quit; Brackman falls for the charms of his seductive bailiff; after getting Kleinberg to edit out some things in her novel that hit a little too close to home, Becker brokers a publishing deal for her in exchange for a percentage, and a few extras; Perkins finds out how much money Rollins is making and tells Sifuentes, who manages to negotiate a raise, while Perkins is left out in the cold and wondering if her job is in jeopardy.
Sifuentes represents a traumatized woman suing a cop for not intervening as he witnessed her rape, and her boyfriend's murder, during an armed robbery in a bar; Markowitz's request for a prenup backfires on him badly; when an old case resurfaces, Brackman discovers his father's secret life, complete with a mistress and another son; members of the firm support Stulwicz when his mother dies; over Kuzak's strong objections, Van Owen meets with Palmer and then decides to move back to her house; Perkins and Kelsey patch up their differences.
McKenzie overcomes his fear of aging, as well as a little vanity, in successfully representing a client in an age discrimination case; Van Owen is devastated when a witness she has forced to testify against a gang banger is slain, and the woman's young son murders the gang member who ordered his mother's execution; Rollins defies the direct orders of McKenzie and Brackman not to prolong a property settlement conference in a divorce case, but Becker is elated when Rollins's tactics yield a lucrative settlement for their client; Kelsey politely rebuffs Markowitz as he bears gifts and apologies about the prenup, until he finally wears her down and gets her to admit that controlling and manipulative behavior is another thing they have in common; Brackman's sanctimonious pontificating about the sanctity of marriage to litigants in the court room doesn't carry into his own behavior in his chambers with Vasek.
Rollins does an end run around Markowitz and McKenzie to retain a client, much to their displeasure; Sifuentes meets an attractive divorcee; Kelsey's misgivings about her mother's visit prove well-founded when Markowitz loses his composure in public over his future mother-in-law's incessant bigotry; over Brackman's objections, Perkins pursues mediation instead of litigation as a strategy for resolving a dispute between former friends and business partners, and fears for her future at the firm when the mediation ends badly; Kuzak defends an arrogant and addicted celebrity charged with possession and assault; Vasek is initially understanding when Brackman ends their relationship in the face of his brother's blackmail, but becomes livid when he ruins her career to cement the breakup.
Van Owen prosecutes three attorneys for the sexual molestation of a teenage stripper; after agonizing over the possibility that Vasek may have exposed him to AIDS, Brackman vows to go on the straight and narrow after he receives a clean bill of health, and is floored by Vasek's reaction; when gossip he overhears at a restaurant leaves him unnerved, Becker reappraises his image; Sifuentes and Sevilla take their relationship to another level; Perkins is astonished when Rohner vs. Gradinger turns out to be a winner in more ways than one; Becker learns a lesson about self-acceptance when he tries to lift Stulwicz's spirits with a fashion makeover.
Van Owen has mixed emotions about successfully prosecuting a teenager who murdered his abusive father; seeking to get out from under his brother's blackmail, Brackman confesses his infidelity to his wife, who exacts a stiff penalty for the crime which leaves her husband breathless; Becker enlists Melman's support in making the holidays in Palm Springs bearable; when Sevilla is arrested for the murder of her husband, Sifuentes gets the case dismissed, but his inability to believe her version of the events surrounding the fatality permanently dooms their relationship.
In the aftermath of his anxiety attack, Brackman has a new perspective on life, and his wife has a new perspective on their relationship that involves talking to lawyers; Benny is mistakenly charged with sexual assault; Melman runs into a handsome and charming man in the parking garage; Gianelli asks Perkins for her hand in marriage, but is forced to settle for a date; Kelsey's mother reappears bearing gifts and heartfelt apologies; Rollins lights a fire under the opposition to smoke out the real extent of the injuries a man claims to have sustained during a performance by the Gianelli family; after the bride overcomes a few pre-wedding jitters, Kelsey and Markowitz are united in matrimony.
Sifuentes's plan to use the zoo as a teaching tool for giving Stulwicz some sex education has unexpected benefits for two of its residents; Melman's new boyfriend gets arrested for insider trading, placing her, Kelsey and Perkins in jeopardy for acting on his tips; Becker's scorched earth policy on divorce settlements leads to near tragedy for a client's family, which prompts him to reassess his strategy for handling Brackman's divorce.
McKenzie gets Brackman's arrest for solicitation vacated when he's able to prove that his colleague really was ordering off the menu at a sushi bar, and not negotiating a tryst with an attractive but inexperienced undercover police officer; Melman's loyalty to Markham lands her behind bars for refusing to testify against him until a jail house visitor wises her up by breaking her heart; Van Owen accepts the offer of a lucrative partnership in an old friend's law firm; Sifuentes's bad luck streak with the women in his life extends into the courtroom when his client dooms his dreams of winning a landmark First Amendment case; Markowitz's mixed feelings about his new watch are resolved by a mugger who relieves Markowitz of his ill-gotten gain, and Kelsey of her engagement ring.
Kuzak represents an attorney suing the law firm that fired her for being overweight; Markowitz gets caught up in the middle of greedy heirs, their attorneys, Kelsey, and Brackman when his client unexpectedly leaves him her multi-million dollar estate hours before her death; Van Owen is outraged and horrified when she learns that her new law firm is owned by a mobster, and is further traumatized when the man is gunned down in a mob hit as he sits across from her in a restaurant; when Rollins's new-found celebrity in the local media as a young hot-shot attorney goes to his head, the irritated partners devise a practical joke to knock him down a few pegs, and Rollins returns the favor.
Still traumatized by the mob hit, Van Owen resigns from the firm and decides to take some time off before job hunting; Kuzak shocks Becker into dropping a client who's illegally using court proceedings to boost the ratings for her TV show; the charges against Alden are dismissed when Kelsey and Markowitz can't agree on the stand about the details of their mugging, but they manage to use his greed to get Kelsey's ring back and Alden rearrested on perjury charges; Perkins and Becker give Stulwicz some guidance on dating.
Brackman loses a parent, but gains another sibling; Kuzak convinces Van Owen to come out of retirement to represent his client's co-defendant in a felony murder trial; Perkins and Rollins bicker over the best way to deter a class action suit against their client until Motown and a little spin on the conference room table help them patch up their differences; Farrell visits his brother to extend both his condolences and his hand out for a portion of their father's residuary estate; Sifuentes represents a widow in her legal malpractice case against her formerly famous, but now fading, attorney; Salt's understanding of the dynamics of the Brackman marriage helps him bring them back together, forging a bond of closeness with his new-found sibling and his wife.
Feelings run high among the attorneys at the firm when Kelsey represents a doctor petitioning the court to allow him to deliver an endangered eight month old fetus by Caesarean section against the wishes of the child's father and terminally ill mother; the Brackman reconciliation collapses in a hail of pottery, and Becker's ammunition in their settlement talks backfires badly; Kuzak and Van Owen clash over trial strategy; Brackman follows in his father's footsteps when seeking solace over his divorce woes.
Kuzak successfully represents a woman who murdered her rapist after he invoked his diplomatic immunity to avoid prosecution, but the case ends tragically when the rapist's brother seeks his revenge; Van Owen goes back to work prosecuting a golfer whose abuse led to the death of a swan; Stulwicz confesses to shredding the wrong file even though he fears that his job may be in jeopardy; Farrell is shocked to discover the new man in his mother's life.
Rollins goes after a businessman who bilked a widow out of her life's savings; Becker capitalizes on the pending divorce of a judge who's presiding over his case; Roxanne is bored by a traveling salesman.
A TV superhero fights to remain in the role of the Salamander; Becker celebrates his birthday with the new woman in his life; and Roxanne discovers she has a big tax problem.
Van Owen is stung when the defense attorney of the man she prosecutes for attempted murder levels charges of racism against both her and the witnesses in the case; McKenzie gains a young admirer as he defends an overly litigious retiree with too much time on his hands; the Debeque twins create a stir when they appear in the office looking for Sifuentes, but run into an old friend instead; Melman finds it impossible to resist Meyer's offers of friendship, flowers, dinners and the use of one of his cars.
Sifuentes represents a couple suing their security company for neglecting to take action when they were assaulted during a home invasion robbery; Van Owen prosecutes a man for unlawful touching when he won't restrain his tongue to his own mouth; Perkins is upset when her annual review paints a dim picture of her future with the firm; Becker is concerned when Melman settles for financial security over love and marries Meyer; after Stulwicz is denied the right to register to vote, Kuzak takes up his case; Kelsey and Markowicz have a discussion about becoming parents.
Perkins decides to strike out on her own as a solo practitioner; Becker loses a car but gains a new friend when he agrees to represent Meyer's sister in her divorce action; McKenzie decides to go for broke with Kepler; Markowitz provides the right words to settle a dispute between a father and the son who's suing him for abuse; in the midst of prosecuting a career criminal accused of the murder of two police officers, Van Owen faces a dilemma when she discovers that the testimony of her key witness was obtained illegally.
Markowitz gets discouraging news when he visits a fertility specialist; Melman has difficulty adapting to married life and her husband's demands on her attention until she gets some wise advice from Becker; Kuzak takes a pro-bono case from the overloaded public defenders office and ends up defending an accused rapist with a prior rape conviction and a propensity for violence; Becker is frustrated and angry when his client withdraws her complaint and thwarts his hopes of making case law, and Ryan fails to give him the comfort and support he's seeking; Perkins leaves the firm to become a solo practitioner.
Brackman sends Perkins a referral who turns out to be dishonest, desperate, and violent; Rollins is initially outraged when McKenzie assigns Sifuentes to second chair on a wrongful death suit, but becomes grateful for the help after he alienates the jury and Sifuentes saves the day, and the case; to help Perkins drum up some business, Becker gives her the gift of a consultation with his publicist; Markowitz is despondent about his chances of fatherhood when an adverse reaction to the fertility drugs forces him to stop taking the medication; Van Owen confesses her struggles over the illegal confession in the Torrey case to Kuzak; Kelsey is angered when Markowitz discusses adoption with Becker without her knowledge.
Kuzak faces disciplinary action for not revealing that his opponent in a negligence trial is not a member of the bar; Brackman hires a new associate; still overwhelmed by Holland's death, Perkins reaches out to Van Owen and Ringstrom for help; the Brackmans grieve the end of their marriage as they agree to a financial settlement and prepare to file final divorce papers; Kelsey and Markowicz agree to consider adoption after desperate measures to conceive lead to an embarrassing encounter with an amused Rollins and Sifuentes.
Rollins represents a man who, after a devastating childhood trauma, can only talk through a caustic dummy, and is charged with assaulting the police officer who confiscated the dummy after being subjected to a storm of verbal abuse; Becker sets up Kelsey and Markowitz with a baby broker; Kuzak is subpoenaed to testify in the Mathers fraud case; Kelsey represents an actress suing a tabloid for printing lies which caused irreparable damage to her reputation and career; the firm loses a major client after the disciplinary board of the state bar slaps Kuzak with a public censure and a one month suspension.
A death sentence in the Torrey case adds to Van Owen's mounting guilt and propels her to craft a deal which gets Torrey off death row and everyone else off the hook, but the desire of some police officers to avenge one of their own leads to Torrey's murder soon after his release; Kelsey and Markowitz have their hopes raised and then dashed by an expectant mother; Meyer's pitch of an eight figure income entices Becker to partner up with him on a video marketing Becker's marital law expertise; Perkins and Ringstrom give in to their mutual attraction.
Kuzak returns from his suspension to defend the owner of a nudist colony being sued for creating a public nuisance, and manages to turn the damaging testimony of a witness intent on defrauding his client into a bargaining ship that yields the client a financial windfall; Stulwicz is wounded when he misinterprets Gottlieb's gestures of friendship for something more romantic; Sifuentes successfully represents a hospital treating a young woman who's been in an irreversible coma for two years when her parents petition to have her life support terminated.
Van Owen snatches defeat out of the jaws of victory when she lets her anger and her ego get in the way during a rematch with an old adversary in the courtroom; Perkins and Markowitz clash over his claim that her cash flow problems have caused her to lose sight of their shared client's best interests; sparks fly between Sifuentes and Gottlieb; Kelsey and Markowitz gain a beautiful new addition to their family.
On his way to Chicago for an important new client pitch, Brackman takes on the airline that refuses to allow him to disembark in the middle of a four hour delay, and phones the firm to get a court order freeing him, which in turn gets him promptly arrested as soon as he sets foot in the terminal for using a cell phone on the plane; Sifuentes hires a beautiful private investigator who doesn't pull any punches in helping him track down an elusive witness; when the partners realize how much money Becker is making on the video, they demand a cut of his multi-million dollar profits; Van Owen is impressed by Sifuentes when they go up against each other in a murder-for-hire conspiracy case, and shocks him when she gives into a whim and shows the depth of her admiration; Brackman emerges victorious twice over when the charges against him are dismissed and he gets the new Chicago business; Melman gets something to think about when she learns how the million dollar profits of Becker's video will
Perkins and Ringstrom continue their romance and their afternoon trysts; Melman gets arrested and sued after the strains of her diet and her marriage lead her to punch out an obnoxious loud-mouth in her weight loss group; Kuzak is crushed when his failure to perform proper discovery costs his widower client a settlement from the hospital that caused the death of his wife by failing to treat her adequately due to her inability to pay; McKenzie helps a widow retrieve the remains of her late husband after his misidentified body is dissected for research purposes and shipped out to medical facilities across the country; Melman and Meyer visit a marriage counselor; as they leave a restaurant, Kuzak and Van Owen run into Ringstrom -- and his wife.
Kuzak decides that a private trial with a closeted judge is the best way to win to retain his gay client's multi-million dollar endorsement contract with a cereal manufacturer, but when the verdict goes against him, his client is unwilling to seek another trial based on an ex parte statement revealing the judge's bias because it will force the judge out of the closet; Perkins confronts Ringstrom after Kelsey tells her he's married, and ends the relationship after she fakes a reason to visit his house and meet his wife; Meyer and Melman separate after they arrive at directly opposite solutions to their marital problems, but reconcile after Melman is forced to acknowledge some hard truths during a therapy session; the lack of a good nanny brings Kelsey and Markowitz troubles, and their daughter to the office.
A jealous husband who blames the divorce video for the demise of his marriage abducts Becker at gunpoint and forces him to drive to Barstow and confront his desperately unhappy wife; a corrupt politician dangles an appointment to the federal bench before McKenzie, conditioned on his getting Sifuentes to drop an investigation into the politician's abetting the developer of a federal building in circumventing building codes by using dangerous shortcuts that led to a construction worker's death; Brackman is saddened when he overhears Kuzak, Becker, Kelsey and Markowitz discuss their reservations about his becoming the senior partner when McKenzie departs; Sifuentes' disappointment in his client's decision to succumb to the politician's million dollar bribe to drop the investigation turns to admiration for McKenzie's refusal to compromise his integrity for the seat on the judiciary he so clearly desires; Melman erupts in anger when Meyer points to her attraction to Becker as a source of so
Kuzak is furious when McKenzie benches him as a result of his recent losing streak and assigns an important trial to Sifuentes; after their retirement home freezes their accounts, four octogenarians rob a bank to gain access to their funds, and insist on their day in court, even though Van Owen offers them a very favorable plea bargain; in his first murder trial, Rollins utilizes his intuition and some good advice from Kuzak in representing a battered woman who admits to murdering the abusive husband who threatened to kill her; in the wake of his anxiety attack, McKenzie decides that the age difference between him and Kepler is too great, and ends the relationship; after he helps Becker arrive at a settlement between a studio and an actress who wants to be released from her contract, Kuzak succumbs to the thespian's charms following a late night celebratory dinner.
Kelsey and Markowitz are devastated when Harris changes her mind about the adoption; Melman decides to file for divorce; Rollins hires an attractive new summer intern; the lure of a potential high six figure income leads Perkins move the focus of her practice to representing drug dealers; Kuzak and Van Owen argue about their relationship; the partners quickly regret it when their criticism of Brackman's managerial style prompts him to resign as managing partner, and are greatly relieved when he agrees to their entreaties to return to the job.
Although Sifuentes wages a valiant battle in court on their behalf, Kelsey and Markowitz are ordered to return their daughter to Harris; when the federal prosecutor can't beat Perkins in court over in the Weiland case, he retaliates by having her arrested on bogus charges; Kuzak is forced to put on the gorilla suit again to win a case in civil court against an opponent whose trial strategy is to sing and dance his way to a lighter judgment against his client; Rollins offers his legal expertise when Moses files for divorce; Van Owen decides to take a break from her relationship with Kuzak.
Van Owen prosecutes a homeowner who killed a homeless man going through his garbage; against Kuzak's advice, Perkins decides to testify before the grand jury, where she hands Flaherty yet another stunning defeat; Meyer hires a high powered attorney who successfully argues a motion that prevents Becker from representing Melman if the divorce goes to trial; Stulwicz plays a pivotal role in winning new business for the firm and gains a new friend in the process; McKenzie asks Perkins to return to the firm.
Sifuentes represents a brewery owner who's being forced out of business by vicious rumors spread by a racist competitor; hip hop meets doo wop when singing groups battle it out in court over trade name and performing rights; after duking it out in heated depositions, Becker and Ganz work out a settlement in Meyer vs. Melman; Moses puts the brakes on Rollins, both professionally and personally; Perkins skillfully renegotiates her return to the firm; a heartbroken Meyer finally accepts that his marriage is over.
A cocky talk show host who's sure he won't be convicted and is eager to use the publicity surrounding a trial to boost his ratings refuses Van Owen's plea offer of one year's probation for soliciting his audience members to commit an assault on a guest that proved fatal, and is stunned when he is found guilty and realizes that Van Owen's recommendation will send him to prison; Melman flirts with the idea of retirement after she receives her divorce settlement and Markowitz creates her financial plan; Gottlieb begs the assistance of a flu-stricken Sifuentes in containing the threats of multiple lawsuits after a pot-belled pig is eaten by a snake on the set of the already over-budget rock video she's shooting, and the snake also dies after one of her crew members tries to save the pig; worried that the relationship that's developing between Stulwicz and his daughter is moving too fast, Hackett unsuccessfully attempts to end it; Kelsey finds out that she's pregnant.
Sifuentes reluctantly represents a wholesale furrier suing an animal rights group whose disruptions at his fashion shows caused him a million dollar loss; Hackett becomes concerned about the possibility of becoming a grandfather when he learns that his daughter and Stulwicz are having sex, and it takes McKenzie's powers of persuasion and a promise to talk to Stulwicz about contraception to convince Hackett not to have his daughter sterilized; Markowitz is torn between his dreams of glory as the star third baseman at the McKenzie Brackman annual softball game and his promise to attend Lamaze class with Kelsey; Kuzak buys a motorcycle.
Kuzak's defense of a black college professor accused of murdering his young white research assistant blows up when the prosecutor sandbags his case by delaying DNA discovery, thus exposing his client's lies and destroying Kuzak's defense strategy; Van Owen counters an insanity defense based on uncontrollable sexual obsession when she prosecutes a claims adjuster for insurance fraud he asserts was the result of his inability to counter the demands of his dominatrix; Becker's desire to win at all costs and gain a large fee in the process garners his client a large settlement, but wrecks havoc on his relationship with his client; fulfilling his promise to Hackett, McKenzie assigns Sifuentes the responsibility of teaching Stulwicz about contraception.
Kuzak weighs the testimony of sympathetic witnesses to clear his client; Becker tries to clear the air with an unhappy divorce client; a sympathetic Rollins takes the case of an elderly woman being steamrolled by an insurance company.
Sifuentes duels again with Hamilton Schuyler in a case challenging ""dwarf tossing""; a witness comes forward with testimony Kuzak hopes will clear his client; Kelsey agrees to help a friend sue pro-lifers harassing women at health clinics.
Van Owen is at a loss for words when confronted by a terrified mother after failing to win a conviction against the woman's ex-husband for molesting their young daughter; Becker, Kelsey, and the associates are all wary when the partners decide that the way to stem their declining revenues is to bring in Rosalind Shays, a "rainmaker", as a new partner; Markowitz represents a dating service sued by a hard-to-satisfy customer, who's more than happy to make the acquaintance of Dave Meyer after the trial is over; Brackman's latest scheme to save money on his health food kick has the staff smelling a rat.
Kelsey defends a malpractice suit filed by a patient whose baby died during delivery; a divorcée sues Becker over his video; Brackman puts the crunch on a cereal company over a botched contest; Sifuentes is miffed about the firm's new partner Rosalind Shays.
Kuzak makes a last-ditch try to have his client's sentence lightened; Markowitz panics when Kelsey goes into labor early; Benny has a holiday surprise for Alice; the holidays could be lonely for Becker.
Rollins's friend asks for his help in petitioning the court to allow her to end her life and be cryogenically preserved until a cure for her incurable brain tumor is found; Kuzak meets an attractive dancer; Becker decides to leave the firm and form a partnership with Ganz; Allison is sexually assaulted by a member of her film crew; Roxanne gets a little help from her friends when she experiences a little stage fright during her singing lesson recital.
After Becker slinks off with his files and resigns his partnership by telegram, McKenzie gets a restraining order to prevent him from siphoning off the firm's clients; Allison's rapist is bound over for trial after a painful pre-trial hearing; Rollins represents a man with Tourette's Syndrome who's suing his employer for wrongful termination after he's fired because of his disability; Kuzak and Dugan make a dinner date; Brackman gets braces.
Sifuentes's representation of a woman in a sexual harassment case against the federal judge for whom she clerked stirs up some emotional issues about Allison's rape which, despite their best efforts, the couple can't seem to resolve; Markowitz represents an elderly mohel being sued for malpractice; Becker is greeted coldly upon his return to the firm, and must face a hurt and angry Stulwicz; Rosalind subtly pits McKenzie and Brackman against each other as she secretly undermines them to poach their major clients.
Kuzak suspects a barrister is exaggerating his ignorance of American courtroom procedure to influence the jury; Becker yearns for more fanfare from his co-workers; a friend's confession to Diana tests the limits of lawyer-client privilege; Rosalind invades Kelsey's space.
Sifuentes and McKenzie butt heads over a suit involving an Iranian airplane; Roxanne leads a secretaries' revolt when Brackman issues a lunch-hour edict; and Van Owen is offered a seat on the bench.
A comic charges his comedy-writer ex-wife with heckling him on-stage; a divorcée sues her ex for years of abuse; and Kelsey wages war on Rosalind.
Kuzak pleads Williams's case before the State Court of Appeals; Rosalind is outraged when the partners decline to take on a potentially lucrative client because the company promotes apartheid; Becker represents a man so embittered by his wife's divorcing him that he intends to ruin her career as a prominent newswoman by distributing a private, x-rated video he made of their intimate moments.
Kuzak fights to have the murder charges against Earl Williams dismissed; Sifuentes defends a doctor who refused to perform emergency surgery on an AIDS victim; the firm is rocked by McKenzie's resignation as senior partner, as Rosalind, Stuart and Douglas are eager to assume the role.
To the dismay of Becker and Brackman, Rosalind becomes Abby's strong supporter when a major client leaves the firm after he is unsuccessful in pressuring Abby not to pursue a dismissal of charges against his drug-addicted son, but to convince his son instead to accept a plea bargain that will send him to jail; Rollins's client is sued by the owner of an oversized frog when she disqualifies the amphibian from the jumping contest she's promoting; Kelsey represents the parents of a slain teenager when they sue the parents of the young skinhead who murdered their son; Benny inadvertently sets off a bidding war hampered by attorneys and paralegals when he decides to sell his baseball card collection; as her overbearing manner begins to set the other attorneys on edge, Rosalind mounts a subtle campaign for absolute control of the firm by undermining McKenzie's influence with clients.
A couple is accused of murdering their baby; a sobriety test halts Markowitz and Kelsey's lunch-time tryst; thoughts of Sheila wreak havoc with Brackman's sex life.
A family whose home was destroyed in a drug raid charge the police with excessive force; Van Owen ponders her sentencing of an 8-year-old cop killer; Sifuentes and Rosalind clash over a test case involving a liquor company's negligence; Marilyn unleashes Brackman's passion
Roxanne's dealings with her dad are reminiscent of The Honeymooners; Markowitz's first trial involves a man tortured in Argentina; Rosalind sells out a client.
Sifuentes represents a priest being sued by a husband who attributes his wife's mental breakdown to the priest's refusal to grant her absolution; Roxanne becomes her father's legal guardian, and brings him to her home to live; McKenzie faces off against Rosalind in a bid for reinstatement as senior partner.
A gay cop sues when the secret of his sexuality is revealed in the press by a journalist; McKenzie seeks a star litigator to fill an opening at the firm; Benny fumes after seeing Alice kiss someone else; and Corrinne pops the question to an unsure Becker.
Sifuentes's boyhood friend battles time while on death row; the prenuptial countdown begins for Becker and Corrinne; and the firm's new attorney defends a mercy killer.
The shadow of Rosalind Shays again darkens the door of the firm when she sues them for discrimination, while another lawsuit escalates racial tensions.
Rollins feels exploited when he's asked to assist on the Chisholm case; a surprise witness testifies in Rosalind's suit; Brackman considers breaking off with sex surrogate Marilyn after one of her clients dies; Murray gets everyone's attention.
An unexpected witness emerges in the Chisholm case; the parents of an emotionally disturbed adopted son seek relief through the courts; Melman refuses to do personal errands for Hammond.
Holloway takes the stand; a savvy lawyer, C.J. Lamb, gets wise to the firm's strategy in a lawsuit; a college professor claims he was publicly humiliated on a TV home-video show.
A gay-rights case proves to be emotionally trying for the parents and lover of a terminally ill man; Van Owen is taken aback by Sollers' proposition; the firm goes to court behind Benny's back over his involvement with a cult.
Douglas appears on Wheel of Fortune (daytime version) & when he's champion, he tries to ask Vanna out on a date. He wins one round with the puzzle, ""Bald Is Beautiful""!
Van Owen is given another option when a hospital rejects her client for a kidney transplant; a flag-burner is beaten up by an outraged citizen; Murray and Benny double date.
A disfigured doctor charges a clinic with discrimination; Benny anticipates the holidays with his new roommate; Van Owen defends a former colleague.
The wife of a brain-damaged boxer sues his promoter; Abby speaks out on TV on gun control; Sifuentes and Van Owen mull their relationship.
McKenzie's social life is scrutinized; Sifuentes has misgivings about defending a client; Becker gives a golddigger a creative divorce; Kuzak clashes with Van Owen.
A soldier faces a military court for disobeying orders; C.J. represents a home buyer who claims her house is haunted; ""personality differences"" affect Becker and Roxanne.
Jane Pauley hosts a behind-the-scenes look at the first five seasons of the critically-acclaimed series with interviews with the cast, crew and legal experts.
Rosalind promises to help McKenzie save an account; a case of multiple personalities confounds Kuzak; Abby collaborates with C.J. to build her practice; Roxanne is subpoenaed in the case of Becker vs. Becker.
A jog in a white neighborhood lands Rollins in jail as a rape suspect; C.J.'s client goes before a Navajo tribal court to get her son back from his father; Brackman moves to sue a tabloid.
Sifuentes is forced to play God on behalf of his brother; a headline-hunter charged with murdering her husband hunts for an attorney; Zoey takes on a rape case she's unsure she can win.
Lawyers stand ready to assist Mullaney and Kuzak, who are defending Rikki Davis on murder charges; McKenzie gets a surprise proposal as he faces his birthday.
Zoey scoffs at the legal system when a child-killer goes free; a delinquent taxpayer protests Government spending; Rosalind steps in to help McKenzie with yet another case.
Roxanne and Ann quietly (but gleefully)toast the death of Rosalind whome they both despised. McKenzie feels guilty about Rosalinds death but realises that she may have had it coming. Arnie also celebrates the death of Rosalind for a totally different reason, he gets a bigger office.
Recent events lead to chaos at the firm; religion goes on trial in the case of a couple who relied on their faith to save their dying son; C.J. instructs East Bloc lawyers on trial law.
Staffers fear Dave Meyer will derail the firm; Brackman plays litigator in the case of a transsexual fired from a job as a model; and Mullaney weighs a coach's negligence in the death of an athlete.
An eccentric judge loses his grip on reality; Rollins gets caught up in his own agenda while defending a black motorist charged with evading the police; Becker grapples with his demons.
Kelsey and Sollers get caught up in winning a murder case involving an unstable client; a retiree finds euphoric companionship in his pet toads; a team owner objects to a singer's rendition of the national anthem.
An AIDS-stricken attorney fights an insurance company's refusal to pay for an experimental treatment; Kelsey's admission concerning a murder case could jeopardize her standing with the bar; and a new partner is named.
Facing financial woes, the firm is forced to share office space with an entertainment lawyer; Van Owen's high-profile client is charged with murdering her abusive husband.
Van Owen elicits emotional testimony from Elsa Chandler; the Government's handling of the MIA issue following the Vietnam War comes under fire in a family feud over a presumed-dead Air Force captain.
Brackman is the unwitting victim in a gay-bashing incident; Kelsey defends a logging-company executive in a case involving a tree-spiking activist; C.J.'s father comes to town on a bender.
Zoey's case threatens to move a death-row schizophrenic closer to an execution date; a splenectomy patient challenges a doctor's right to profit from her donor cells; Bloom bulldozes Roxanne in a battle over office turf.
A tenant at a housing project where guns have been banned sues for the right to defend himself; a recovering addict faces reproductive restrictions; McKenzie arbitrates a divorce between two animal trainers.
As new DA Ruby Thomas takes office, the firm's reputation is tainted when Frank Kittredge defends a mob boss; Markowitz challenges an exhibition-basketball team's firing of its female opponents.
Brackman's former sister-in-law sues to get the school board to pay for her disabled son's private education; Bloom defends an overweight man accused of assaulting a refreshment-stand owner; an overworked Gwen fights Becker's hypocrisy.
C.J. takes a personal interest in a case involving a friend, a divorcée whose lesbian affair foments a custody battle for her kids; Brackman can't seem to muster staff enthusiasm for the annual holiday party.
Mullaney is pitted against Zoey in his defense of an accused serial killer and rapist; a client's sanity comes into focus during the handling of a movie deal; Bloom finds evidence of McKenzie's indiscretion.
A patient paralyzed after surgery sues her physician; Benny petitions for custody of a homeless youth; not everyone is supportive of Brackman's courting Veronica.
C.J.'s client accuses the Government of negligence in the rape-murder of his wife; Becker's ego is cut down to size over the airwaves; Mullaney's presence stirs up trouble between Zoey and Rollins.
Mullaney co-chairs a suit by Honduran farmers who claim U.S. pesticides made them sterile; Zoey helps a co-worker confront her repressed memories; Markowitz meets the actress of his childhood dreams.
Sifuentes visits the firm and finds that his failed relationship with Van Owen demands his attention; Kittredge takes on a legal dispute involving a perfume queen and her protégé.
Flanagan brings suit against her father; McKenzie arbitrates a dispute between a cookbook author and her student; Rollins' dad comes to him for help.
A Jewish philanthropist halts funding for a medical researcher who is using data from Nazi experiments; the Markowitzes anticipate the worst from a girl claiming to be Stuart's daughter; Becker's fidelity is put to the test by Julie.
The partners disagree about Van Owen's defending a celebrity baseball player on rape charges; DePalma becomes embroiled in a sting operation on a corrupt judge; Markowitz offers Sarah a job at the firm despite Kelsey's reservations, then tries too hard to win her affections; Roxanne moves out after Rayburn deceives her about Becker's fidelity.
Becker's shrink drops dead; the Brackmans use Alexander to call one another's bluff; Kelsey fires Ned after he makes a pass at her; McKenzie chastises DePalma for how he participated in the sting operation, but comes to the young attorney's aid when a member of the bench exacts his own punishment for DePalma's role in exposing Kelton; during Susan Bloom's wedding, Alexander and Sam get into trouble, and Gwen and Kittredge get closer; Kelsey is taken into custody when she protests the I.N.S. arrest of Matthew's new nanny; Becker tries to regain Roxanne's trust.
A multimillionaire tries to buy his way out of a murder charge; parental concerns compound for the Brackmans and Benny when Alexander and Sam end up in juvenile court; and an INS review interrupts Bloom's marital bliss.
Mullaney works with a feisty young prosecutor when he takes an out-of-town assignment as the lead prosecutor in the case of a missing woman presumed murdered by her co-worker during a theft from the bank where they both worked; Markowitz represents a condom manufacturer whose flag-emblazoned wares were seized by Customs under federal obscenity laws; Becker's representation of a woman with Alzheimer's whose daughter is vying for conservatorship rights with her mother's much-younger new husband gets torpedoed by Frank Kittredge when he leaks Gwen's pillow talk about the case to the woman's daughter, with whom he's also having an affair; Zoey wonders about the future of their relationship when Jonathan considers whether to accept the offer of a short-term appointment to the city council that could lead to a long-term future in politics.
Frank is fired for his role in destroying Becker's case; C.J. represents a movie executive who's being sued by an actress for insisting that she get breast implants that later proved faulty; Zoey faces off against a jailhouse lawyer in the trial of a convict accused of murdering another inmate, and unwittingly helps to shape her adversary's future; Sarah comes running to her father when she has an argument with Karen over her new, older boyfriend, leading to fireworks among the women in Markowitz's life; Bloom hides her true feelings about the future of her marriage from her new groom.
A widower sues a psychic, claiming he was bilked; C.J. grows friendly with the opposing cousel in the breast-implant case.
Jonathan dumps Zoey; the Brackmans decide to reconcile and remarry; Victor Sifuentes returns to reclaim Van Owens' hand; Zoey's decision to advance her career by perjuring herself on the stand has tragic consequences when her testimony tips the scales in the case of a former inmate who sues the federal prison system after he contracts AIDS from a prison rape; Roxanne learns a hard lesson about Becker's selfishness and lack of responsibility when they discover that one of his former lovers is dying from AIDS.
McKenzie, Brackman restructures itself into a leaner, meaner firm with the arrival of new partner Daniel Morales and the departure of Grace, C.J. and Susan Bloom; after a harrowing encounter with a dissatisfied knife-throwing client, Becker swears off marital law and vows to make entertainment law his new specialty; Gwen begins her internship and expresses an interest in the widowed Daniel and his baby daughter; Zoey is released from the hospital, but not from the guilt surrounding the shooting; Becker represents an actor suing his amusement park employer for unlawful termination; as the 1992 Los Angeles riots erupt, Brackman is mistaken for a looter and arrested, while Markowitz sustains severe head trauma after being dragged from his car and beaten by an angry mob.
6 months have passed since the 1992 Los Angeles riots, and Brackman becomes his own worst enemy when he sues the city for false arrest on the charge of disturbing the peace; Jonathan begins to compromise his principles as he ramps up his bid for election; Mullaney accepts a position in the District Attorney's office; Markowitz is discharged from the hospital and begins the slow road to recovery; Becker is back from his trip around the world; when a dying man confesses to committing a murder for which Leland successfully prosecuted someone else 33 years earlier, Daniel agrees to represent the man Leland sent to jail in an attempt to win him a new trial; Zoey returns to work, and finds herself unhappy in her new assignment to the asset forfeiture division.
Brackman sees life's underbelly from behind bars; Jonathan gets in a mudslinging contest in the final days before the election, and makes comments about the attack on Markowitz that draws the anger of the other members of the firm; Mullaney prosecutes a child abuse case in which the opposing counsel is a nun; Zoey seeks a change of venue for her life and career; Kelsey finds it difficult to work at home while taking of her husband, who is increasingly frustrated by his disability.
Markowitz, Rollins and Brackman return to work; Becker gives his client some very Zen advice when a case of sour grapes pits sibling wine makers against each other; Taylor follows the lead of an unscrupulous client in strong-arming the opposition out of a fair settlement; Roxanne makes a dramatic decision in her quest to give her life some meaning; Markowitz and Stulwicz go on an impromptu excursion and make a new friend; Rollins asks Kelsey for forgiveness; Taylor gets an extravagant bouquet of flowers from an unknown admirer.
Melman resigns as office manager and returns to working for Becker; McKenzie represents a friend in a reverse discrimination case; Markowitz struggles to overcome his fear of identifying his attackers; Melman asks Mullaney to father her child; Brackman begins his memoirs; studio mogul Ben Flicker takes Becker under his wing after Becker devises a creative financial approach to settling Flicker's daughter's divorce; Taylor's anonymous admirer continues to send her presents; Markowitz buys a gun for protection.
Kelsey represents a man who wants to prevent his ex-wife from implanting the frozen embryos that they created during their marriage; Taylor stumbles in her first unsupervised appearance in court opposite Romney, but manages to get back on track with McKenzie's help; Rollins gets a surprise when he finally meets the landlord of the South Central apartment he rented to establish residency during the campaign; Mullaney agrees to father Melman's child; another present that's accompanied by a creepy note and a man who's watching her in the courtroom leads Taylor to suspect that she's being stalked; Markowitz confides to Benny that he damaged the house by firing his gun and then lied to Kelsey about the incident.
Brackman is distraught when the pocket watch he inherited from his father disappears; new associate Melina Paros joins the firm; Becker accepts an intricate assignment from Flicker, forcing him to deal with the manipulative wife of Flicker's silent partner; after Lincoln escapes from Benny and ends up at the pound, Markowitz takes extreme measures to get the dog released; Brackman gets a ghost writer for his autobiography; Taylor's pursuer sends her a gruesome gift, which only serves to alarm her further as she begins to suspect every man she encounters; Melman doesn't know how to handle Mullaney's new-found ardor; Paros prosecutes her final case for the State's Attorney's office as she attempts to prove that a woman may have abused her children.
Kelsey represents Markowitz in court and gets the charges suspended with Mullaney's support; suspecting that Morales may be her stalker, Taylor gives him the cold shoulder until Melman sets her straight; Paros wins her child abuse case with a little behind-the-scenes help from McKenzie; after Becker gives Flicker an ultimatum about Schuller, Flicker arranges for Becker to be carjacked and abandoned in the desert, where he comes to the rescue and offers Becker a ride home and a high-level job at the studio; a caring physician uncovers that the cause of Markowitz's strange behavior is a brain cyst that can be treated with medication, and he's released from the psych ward of the hospital; after Brackman coldly rebuffs the partners' gift of a new pocket watch, Lincoln finally offers up the original, to Brackman's joy and relief; Romney unsuccessfully pursues both Taylor and a job at the firm; Mullaney and Melman ride out a few rough patches on the road to parenthood.
Becker realizes why Flicker has kept Schuller on ice when they finally come face-to-face; Paros returns a favor to McKenzie by calling in a favor with the State's Attorney's office on the Osgood case; Brackman's playing with pheromones in an effort to revitalize his sex life gets him and the firm embroiled in two lawsuits; Morales represents a man suing the owners of a slaughterhouse who have set up business next to his weekend getaway home in the desert; Mullaney feels responsible for the mob violence that follows when he fails in his efforts to pull out all the stops in keeping a mentally ill man who murdered his wife from being released from a psychiatric facility; Gwen receives another package from her stalker.
Becker and Morales successfully defend the dominatrix accused of Schuller's death; Rollins represents a developer who deliberately commissions an offensive sculpture for one of his buildings in retaliation against a City Hall ruling; Brackman is less than thrilled at the efforts of his ghost writer until a publisher decides to option the book; McKenzie goes to bat for Taylor when she's denied insurance coverage; Markowitz balks at preparing for the trial of the men who attacked him; Taylor gets a unwelcome late night visitor.
Taylor is haunted by nightmares of Salerno; Brackman represents the owner of a gentleman's club charged with indecency by the city; Markowitz comes through on the stand against his attackers at the preliminary hearing; Salerno tricks an unwitting Stulwicz into aiding her campaign of terror against Taylor; Beatrice Schuller gains control of World Wide Studios, tap dances all over Flicker, and makes Becker an offer he can't refuse.
Rollins represents a man whose drunk driving caused the accident that left his pregnant girlfriend in a coma, and who is now suing to keep her on life support until his unborn child can reach full term; Salerno discovers that Morales's gangbanger client has literally left him holding the smoking gun, and leaks the information to the district attorney's office, leading Morales to be jailed for contempt of court when he refuses to admit that he has the weapon that will convict his client; Mullaney's chain smoking, hard-drinking father comes for a visit bearing bad news; Markowitz tells Mullaney to offer his attackers a plea agreement to end the case, but Kelsey intends to press on by filing a civil suit for loss of consortium; posing as the babysitter, Salerno kidnaps Lucy Morales.
A widow charges a news photographer with encouraging her late husband's suicide; Mullaney maintains a vigil by his father's hospital bed; and authorities are summoned to locate baby Lucy.
McKenzie pursues a witness who could re-open Osgood's case; a murder-for-hire case involves Paros with a family friend; star-crossed lovers cross literary swords in the courtroom.
Brackman represents a man with ties to Hillary Clinton; a man is accused of murdering the rapist who attacked his daughter; and a client who wants a divorce from her husband, a famous boxer, makes a pass at Becker.
Taylor knows just what to say when Markowitz has a problem with a client who demands that the I.R.S. treat her with respect before she'll agree to settle her $800,000 debt; Mullaney's personal life affects his decision about whether a teenager who shot the classmate who bullied him should be prosecuted as a juvenile or as an adult; Rollins defends a man who claims that he was seduced and entrapped into selling stolen art work by an undercover cop; Mullaney and Melman part company when he realizes that he can't handle being either a husband or a father.
When McKenzie handles the estate of a deceased friend, he overcomes his shock at learning that the man owned a valuable pornography collection long enough to sell it on behalf of his estate for top dollar to Yale Tobias; Paros represents a man who's suing a post office manager for the wrongful death of his wife at the hands of a deranged a co-worker; the partners are concerned when Benny's friend introduces him to the world of wagering.
Kelsey represents a TV weatherman suing for wrongful termination; Morales represents a laborer suing a racist couple who cheated him out of payment for work he did on their patio; Becker represents an agent who uses his ex-wife's desire for a religious divorce as leverage in their property settlement negotiations.
Markowitz represents a restaurant owner being sued by obnoxious and demanding customers who claim that they were assaulted by their waiters; Paros represents a woman claiming ownership of valuable paintings created by her great-grandfather currently held by the descendants of the man who enslaved him; Stulwicz urges his disabled friend Rosalie Hendrickson to press charges against the man who raped her, but her mother convinces her to withdraw the complaint.
A teacher is fired after refusing to take a test that would prove he is not sexually aroused by children; a fan claims that a baseball player assaulted him in the stands; and Gwen's fears about passing the bar exam put a strain on her relationship with Morales.
A teenage prostitute claims her boyfriend forced her to rob a man; Becker represents a country music star whose wife's career is better than his; and Gwen's teacher makes another sexual advance.
Roxanne convinces comedian Buddy Hackett to appear in an infomercial about a device that allows a pregnant woman to communicate with her unborn fetus; Gwen charges her former law tutor with sexual harassment; and Benny's girlfriend testifies against the man she claims raped her.
The partners begin to interview candidates for a new associate at the firm which is under interior renovation. Meanwhile, Stuart Markowitz's cousin Eli Levinson arrives in town from New York to defend Sandy Morris, the mentally ill son of some old friends who's accused of murdering a social worker. Eli's former secretary, Denise Iannello, arrives and asks Eli to give her a job as his secretary again. Kelsey represents another attorney suing her own firm for sexual discrimination. Also, Becker finds the new associate candidate, Jane Halliday, a Christian fundamentalist, irresistible, while Kelsey is wary about Halliday's presence.
New associate Jane Halliday represents a Gulf War veteran in declining health, who charges a VA doctor with negligence in treating his baffling illness. Meanwhile, Rollins is representing a TV shopping network executive being sued by a man for enticing his "shopaholic" wife to spend beyond her means. Eli enters a plea of not guilty for Sandy Morrison and hires an attractive private investigator, Jinx Baldasseri, to look into the murder victim's husband a potential suspect while Sandy's parents, Ed Morrison and Rae Morrison, quarrel with Eli and each other over what's best for Sandy.
The Sandy Morris murder trial begins where Eli acts on his suspicions and calls the murder victim's husband, Jonah, to the stand. Meanwhile, Becker longs to buy a classic $275,000 Bentley Convertible, a dream that could come true pending the outcome of a messy divorce case involving his latest client, Jessie Wilks, and her wealthy CEO husband. Also, Morales' artistic eye puts him in charge of the office renovation and meets with the attractive renovator, Lauren Chase, to discus the costs.
McKenzie urges Eli to join the firm and his restricted men's club; a couple move to sue their travel agent for a nightmare trip; a Chinese financier faces murder charges for the death of an illegal immigrant.
Markowitz is approached by Barry Glassman, an old friend who reveals that he's a fugitive named Jay Ellison wanted for attempting to help a Black Panther member escape from prison in 1968 and asks him to help arrange his surrender. Meanwhile, Morales is representing a pot-smoking couple suing the school system for encouraging their daughter to turn them into the police. A casting agent raises Denise's expectations about an acting career. Also, Benny develops a crush on Denise and begins to ignore Rosalie who wants to move in with him.
Becker urges that the firm employ a security consultant in constructing a ""safe room"" for the employees, then falls prey to the innovation when he and Denise get locked in it after hours. Meanwhile, Kelsey and Halliday square off against each other while they are representing Karl Bullon, a self-righteous department store employer being sued by an ex-employee for eavesdropping on her who was having an extra-marital affair with a co-worker, where Halliday learns a courtroom lesson while cross-examining a witness. Also, Rollins decides to represent Glassman and seeks out a former Black Panther member as a witness while he and Markowitz begin to argue about the politics reguarding the case.
Becker's car accident with his Bentley prompts a spate of anti-Asian sentiments, which in turn inspires the minority members of the firm who include Morales and Rollins. Meanwhile, the Glassman case reaches its conclusion as Rollins and Markowitz try to turn the jury against the US government. Eli handles the divorce of the wife of a marriage counseling guru reluctant to give up on the marriage or his wife's money. Also, Jinx helps Eli with his case while showing him the wonders of Los Angeles.
A prostitute brings rape charges against a record executive who claims to have exotic sexual needs; an insecure student sues his voice therapist for fraud; while studying for the California bar exam, Eli contends with the passions of two women.
Mamie Van Doren is a guest at the firm's Christmas party; the son of an aging comic believes his father is being exploited by a mistress; Roxanne asks Mullaney to surrender parental rights.
Morales agrees to defend a confused young man who wants to confess to a convenience store robbery, but who may not be guilty. Meanwhile, Kelsey takes a civil case of defending a man accused of sexual fraud because he implied to a woman that he was an undercover cop. Mullaney and Judge Walker face a defense attorney demanding a mistrial in the Turner case because of their developing relationship. Also, Becker ends up getting duped by a phoney come-on by Halliday after he tells her of his divine sight to see the truth.
A ballerina sues a dance company for breach of contract; an aging juggler accuses his protégé of stealing his act; and Benny dances around a commitment to Rosalie.
Two mountaineers face charges after resorting to cannibalism; a mathematician adds up the consequences of divorce; and Denise lands in the middle of a father-son feud.
Kelsey represents a woman being sued for the custody of her adopted daughter by the girl's biological father, who's heavily influenced by a psychologist with her own unresolved adoption issues; Halliday defends a client with heightened sensibilities against the impolite palaver of the woman's coworker and an impish Becker; the partners resentfully capitulate when Rollins gives them an ultimatum about a partnership offer.
A few days before his wedding, Stulwicz is shocked to discover that his bride-to-be is already married, and enlists Becker's help in getting annulment papers signed by her reluctant husband; when Halliday's father arrives for a visit, Becker wastes no time trying to win him over, but father and daughter clash over his interference in her representation of a biology teacher fired for teaching creationism; at the Hendrickson-Stulwicz nuptials, a little romance is in the air for Kelsey and Markowitz, Ianello and Levinson, and Halliday and Becker, despite their truly terrifying bridesmaid outfits.
Brackman represents senior citizens threatened with eviction from their retirement community for rambunctious behavior arising from their participation in a clinical study of testosterone patches; Rollins takes on the State Department of Corrections on behalf of an inmate who claims that the conditions in the super maximum security facility in which he is incarcerated violate the constitutional prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment; Becker learns that a kiss is just a kiss, and nothing more, where Halliday is concerned; the partners's choice of a new associate prompts Morales to resign.
Levinson represents an advertising executive being sued for wrongful termination by a copywriter with whom she had an affair; Brackman is livid when Halliday's advice to a client seeking inner peace in the midst of litigation over earthquake damage ends up costing the firm over half a million dollars in fees; Ianello's earthquake anxiety begins to get the better of her; Morales leaves the firm.
Becker and Mullaney suspect, but cannot prove, that Flannigan committed a felony in settling a civil damages suit in a child molestation case; Rollins successfully pleads with an over-controlling father to drop a law suit against his fashion model daughter; Flannigan wins the undying gratitude of the Brackmans when he uses his influence to get their son accepted into a prestigious prep school.
Markowitz reluctantly takes a court case of a libel suit involving an investigative reporter being sued by a former a nuclear physicist who was accused of conducting radiation experiments on unwitting subjects in the 1950s. Meanwhile, Kelsey handles a divorce case between a woman and her husband, a Grateful Dead fanatic. Also, Becker gets involved with D.A. Belinda Fox, who is determined to prosecute his client for pandering.
Patrick pulls another fast one; a rumor about Belinda troubles Becker; the owner of a show dog with a litter of mongrels sues her neighbor
Becker tries to hush up his client's connection to a well-placed madam; an incorrigible teen sues to be released from rehab; Eli goes through a broker to buy a car.
Becker blames Belinda's personal malice for his becoming a murder suspect; Mullaney anticipates trouble with a judge who used to date Carolyn; and McKenzie gets troubling news.
McKenzie throws the firm into a turmoil when he announces his plans to retire as they prepare to throw him a surprise 65th birthday party; thinking that he's reached rock bottom at the age of 42, Becker reaches out to Halliday for comfort and finds himself in church; Levinson represents an elderly clothing manufacturer sued by his son in a power struggle over their family business; Benny and Rosalie argue when Dominic urges him to invest money in a race horse.
In this reunion movie, also known as L.A. Law: Return to Justice, Leland McKenzie has retired and left Douglas Brackman, Jr. as the senior managing partner, while former partner Michael Kuzak, now a successful restaurant owner, goes up against old flame Grace Van Owen when he is called out of retirement to help stop the impeding execution of a former client on death row. Meanwhile, divorce lawyer Arnie Becker deals with his most toughest divorce: his own, where his estranged young wife has hired former McKenzie-Brackman lawyer Abby Perkins as her legal representation; Roxanne deals with her ex-husband, who claims that he's dying and wants to spend some quality time with her; and Ann and Stuart find themselves the victims of a scam artist. New employees to the firm are Brackman's over-achieving son Jason, and ambitious and conniving associate Chloe Carpenter.
