The Guardian

- Season 2

(2002)

Nick is arrested and refused bail for parole violations after Mandy Gressler's ultimately fatal OD in his home. Unless the court is convinced the cocaine came with her, Nick's case looks hopeless. Burton hires reputable criminal attorney David Belden, but personally leads the case discretely, helped by ADA Finneran. When Mandy's mother Mary refuses to let her granddaughter Shannon (11) testify, Burton even takes the stand. Only Jake remains prepared to start a partnership with Nick.

Nick defends, without actual sympathy, confused Ronnie Wagner (13), who killed and later raped his adoptive mother and risks being tried as an adult, which may mean execution. Laurie Solt admits she ignored psychiatric therapy recommendations to speed up the adoption. A fender bender with Kim, who convinces him to let her brother Charlie McPherson repair the damage rather than inform the insurance company, leads to Nick becoming her lover before discovering she's a uniformed cop. Jake and James recruit private clients for the new firm, but Nick has doubts whether ...

Ex-senator Caldwell commits suicide in his firm office. Nick continues his hot affair with Kim in secret. Burton keeps advising people what to file, albeit through other lawyers. Nick's new firm defends the manager of a firm developing a city project requiring cemetery plots to be expropriated, Alvin takes on the cause of families opposing exhumations. The FBI suspects Caldwell's motive was exposure in a case of abuse of information from his legislative days. It implicates his right hand Mitchell Lichtman, who tries unsuccessfully to blackmail Burton, who ultimately ...

Nick pleads the case of over-eager, unattractive pre-teen Josh Bennett, from Gill Mueller's orphanage, who wants to continue partaking in events to present kids to potential adopting couples. Nick gets permission but is ordered to chaperon Josh in person. The boy's usual tantrum after an event follows even though a couple finally shows interest, which is withdrawn as a result. Burton renamed the firm Fallin & Fallin and expects Nick to get involved in all aspects of management, even letting staff go when they don't bring enough business.

Nick decides to plead a damage claim for tenant Wilcox's small son Bryant's serious lead-poisoning, but soon realizes multiple foul play involving specialized lawyer Mark Hanson. Jake tries to help Barbara get an embarrassing photograph and ridiculing comment from a dating site, but painfully runs into law student Ignatius J. Reilly's legal argument as well as his mates' fists.

Nick must resume his dormant guardianship of Dale and Penny Fante, whose father is in jail and mother neglects them, because cancer-suffering Dale needs a bone marrow transplant. Penny is missing, but brave Dale helps Nick find her through their rogue former social worker. Penny is found with an adult lover and baby, which inspires the court to place her in a shelter. She refuses to save Dale, so Nick brings the parents in, unearthing dark family secrets. Meanwhile Nick is most uncomfortable negotiating with Burton's regular client, excessively weird, even suicidal ...

Nick represents a girl who wants to have her father's parental rights terminated after her brother is killed while in his care.

Nick reluctantly defends his former childhood neighborhood nemesis Hugh, now orphaned, who is obsessed by his dog Bessy but compromises his own home place by violent episode in defense of the dog. Nick does can't make the partners dinner, in fact Burton's first attempt to throw a birthday surprise party for Nick. Lulu meanwhile defends her friends Robert and Sarah Twain, who become prime suspects in the case of an adopted daughter's disappearance, homicide and possible sexual abuse, which wrecks their marriage after bringing out their SM fetish. Hugh's dog turns out ...

Burton has his next laser eye operation, so Nick takes him in for recovery, but he proves to be a nightmare patient and keeps nagging about a merger deal complicated by environmental issues. James' nephew Levi (for whom he has guardianship) is expelled for refusing to identify the gang kids who beat him up, yet is murdered by the gang afterward. Alvin feels guilty and starts drinking again. Filling in for both, Nick drowns in court cases on three fronts.

Nick defends the interests of the hospital which employs surgeon Brian Olson, whose patient died in a routine operation. He's married to Lulu, and wrecks the marriage completely. Nick discovers Brian failed to disclose his mild epileptic condition. Nick also represents the interests of Betsy Fortunato, whose father confesses the bloody killing of her mother, who has the incurable mental disease of Huntington's. Nick arranges for Steve and Cheryl Manley to adopt Betsy's baby Kris without saying she must be tested as Huntington's is inherited in half the cases, ...

A custody case goes out of control. To prevent violence, Lulu breaks the attorney's honor code flagrantly. Nick defends her brilliantly, avoiding even a suspension. Realizing her marriage is completely wrecked, Lulu asks Nick if his glowing plea also reflects his personal feelings, but he dodges that question.

Burton accepts the city as a bulk client and loses a corporate client Nick and Jake had been pursing for months, in part because he misses a critical meeting. Lulu feels stalked and finds shelter with Nick and Kim, but still turns back to Brian. Burton sympathizes with a widower whose hobby, an aviary, is contested by the neighbors as a serious nuisance, but still wins the case for the city. Gentle gay gentleman Gavin Putinski, who feared from the start that he would be discriminated against, ends up losing unfairly, due to a hostile judge and Nick being overburdened....

A deal Nick and Jake worked on for months to land a major client is badly compromised when Burton blatantly fails to attend one crucial meeting. A teenage relative of James is offered a rap record contract. His guardian refuses, but the boy is reluctant to have his manager appointed instead. An adolescent refuses to be adopted by the WASP Martin couple out of inverse racism.

Nick takes the case of young Timothy Silber, who must choose whether he wants to remain living with his deceased father's cross-dressing partner, Sam Farrell, his trusted, loving "stepmother" or to go live with his unfamiliar, blood-uncle Hank Silver. Burton's platonic live-in, Mary Gessler, with whom Burton wants a relationship and who works at Fallin and Fallin, accepts a date with one of Burton's clients, Frank DeScala. Lulu's husband, Brian Olson, wants to leave to accept a good job in Columbus after cashing in a settlement from the Pittsburgh hospital that fired ...

Nick's ethics are questioned when a corporate client asks him to test a product and he uses the kids at L.S.P. to do it.

Nick and Lulu's relationship heats up after he helps her with a difficult case.

Lulu's life hangs in the balance after her car accident.

Burton defends a cop who shoots and paralyzes Nick's former drug dealer.

Nick and Burton fight to help an ex-con regain custody of his son and resume his boxing career. Lulu teams up with Jake to sue a school bus company on behalf of a cheerleader coerced into an unsavory initiation ritual.

Nick and Lulu's relationship heats up just as they begin working opposing sides of a difficult case.

Lulu tries to make her relationship with Nick official after Alvin catches them having sex at L.S.P.

James' world falls apart when an L.S.P. client appears to be the man thought to have killed his nephew.

With the possibility of losing Lulu for good, Nick erupts in the courtroom and is sentenced to anger management sessions.