Neil defends a man and woman accused of killing the woman's husband. Another man confesses to the killing, but Neil then suspects the detective assigned to the case of deliberately planting false evidence against the original defendants. When he begins investigating this, Neil is framed for heroin possession, and he and Brian try to prove the cop was behind it.
The wife of Brian's longtime friend is murdered, and Brian must defend a Mexican worker accused of the crime.
The lawyers learn that the man they successfully defended at a murder trial is the real killer. Then another man is charged with the murder, and the firm decides to defend him, though due to legal ethics they cannot reveal what they know about their first client.
Wife on trial for killing husband's mistress. Husband testifies he did it. After trial he recants; goes to jail - doesn't matter, the actress playing the wife is Claudette Longet who would killed her lover in real life. Must see episode!!.
Depiction of the shattering of a political career. Nichols and the Darrells represent gubernatorial candidate Stephen Patterson, who makes a swift descent from front runner to a desperately defeated man charged with murdering a female campaign worker.
Frank Delacy, former mafioso, turned informer, has been in prison for 15 years. Original attorney was discovered to have been drinking heavily throughout original trial. He believes Nichols and the Darrells can get him a new trial and acquitted. No one gives him much of a chance for staying alive, with 5 mafioso families waiting for revenge on the outside.
Randy Burroughs, on the run for killing a teenage girl three years ago, arranges a meeting with Brian in the small town of Plainview and asks that he represent him---not because he is innocent, but just so he can inherit the money of his recently deceased aunt. Brian turns him down, but Burroughs comes back to L.A. anyway after finding another lawyer. A waitress Brian met in Plainview also comes to L.A., claiming that she can provide testimony against Burroughs, and Brian and Nichols fear for her safety if Burroughs is freed.
Nichols successfully defends a man accused of murdering a popular athlete that he claims was forcing himself upon his wife. But he then finds himself charged with bribing one of the jurors.
The lawyers wrestle with their conscience when they defend a doctor guilty of performing an illegal abortion.
A cop is killed on a raid at Black Panther HQ for drugs and weapons in Watts, but the police may have the wrong man. The firm represents the boy at the fathers urging.
Nichols agrees to defend a decorated Vietnam veteran, now living a counterculture lifestyle, who is charged with murdering a platoon mate whom he was lifelong friends with. But though he says he is innocent, he refuses to tell exactly what did happen or why.
Brian defends a client who is accused of practicing medicine without a licenses when one of his patients dies even though he has military training as a Vietnam combat medic.
The firm defends a woman accused of killing a man she met through a matchmaking service, not knowing he was already married.
A wealthy client hires Neil to check into his own background to head off a corporate probe. This leads to Neil being suspected by the police of the murder of a man whom his client may have taken the identity of. Or was it the other way around?
Merrell Hyland is found dead in his home and wife Joyce is arrested after signing a confession yet recalls nothing the next day. Brian Darrell takes the lead in her defense but a resident swami complicates matters.
Nichols and Brian take the case of a young Indian charged with killing a fellow tribesman at a construction site. The young man refuses to tell just what happened. So, at first, do five other tribesmen who are believed to have witnessed the killing, but they later suddenly change their minds without explanation.
This episode was a warning about credit reports and the impact they have on your life. The episode begins with a man, Kevin Ireland, breaking into an office building and vandalizing and smashing computers and other machinery with a bat. He is finally arrested, and thus begins the story of how he got to this point in his life: Kevin Ireland is happily married with a beautiful wife, a good job and a good life. He and his wife want to take out a loan and he applies for one. Unfortunately, the credit report the bank receives says he is not a good credit risk. Over the course of the episode, Ireland finds out that his credit report is filled with inaccuracies, and that his credit rating is based on falsehoods. He sues to have items removed from the report, and it becomes a personal war for him to manage to do exactly that. I believe this episode, which was widely viewed, actually had a hand in getting laws passed to facilitate the removal of inaccuracies on credit reports, as well as i
A serviceman is found intoxicated in the apartment of a young woman who appears to have been strangled to death. The young man remembers nothing about how she died, but there appears to be no possible way for anyone else to have gotten out of the apartment. Brian locates an acquaintance of hers who brags that he can provide an answer, but refuses to tell him any more.
Follows the lawyers through four separate cases: one involving rape, one involving euthanasia, and two involving drug offenses.
Brian finds himself falling for his client, a woman changed with the murder of her husband.
Young Miles Parker, years after being kidnapped as a child, vows revenge on the man he believes is guilty. He is arrested after holding the man hostage, leading his lawyers to plead his obsession is a form of insanity.
The team agrees to defend for free an innocent Latino youth who is being pressured to accept a plea deal but they must find his companion and like witness to the crime who is an undocumented girl who has fled back to Mexico.
The attorneys are shocked when one of their mentors, a highly respected attorney and legal scholar now terminally ill, summons them to his home, along with six other people whom he once successfully defended in murder trials. He announces that one of the six was actually guilty of the crime, though he doesn't say which one, and that he intends to make that person pay now for their crime.
Officially, the deaths of two women have been termed an accident and a suicide. Neil turns sleuth to prove the deaths were a double murder.
Neil's investigation of two women's deaths seem to involve a retired general. A wealthy new wife and the man's estranged daughter may provide the answer but a hit man's arrival changes everything.
Lauren Hazelwood claims she murdered her father but can not remember doing it. Nicholls and Darrell take the case.
Neil Darrell is to marry Lisa Lambert, former girlfriend of Neil's old college roommate Lennie Harmon. Lisa apparently commits suicide on their wedding day by a drug overdose.
A young man is arrested on suspicion of sabotaging the plane of his girlfriend's father, a wealthy man who despises him.
The firm of Nichols, Darrell & Darrell defends the leader of a student protest movement charged with the murder of a campus policeman. The problem is that the student, and his supporters, may be more interested in making a statement about their grievances than about his acquittal.