L.A. Law

Pilot

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.

Those Lips, That Eye

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.

The House of the Rising Flan

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.

The Princess and the Wiener King

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.

Simian Chanted Evening

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.

Slum Enchanted Evening

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.

Raiders of the Lost Bark

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.

Gibbon Take

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.

The Venus Butterfly

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.

Fry Me to the Moon

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.

El Sid

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.

Sidney, the Dead-Nosed Reindeer

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.

Prince Kuzak in a Can

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.

The Douglas Fur Ball

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.

December Bribe

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.

Beef Jerky

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.

Becker on the Rox

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.

Fifty Ways to Floss Your Lover

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.

The Grace of Wrath

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.

Sparky Brackman, R.I.P.

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.

Oy Vey! Wilderness!

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.

Pigmalion

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.

The Lung Goodbye

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.

The Wizard of Odds

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.

Cannon of Ethics

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

Hey, Lick Me Over

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.

The Son Also Rises

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.

Romancing the Drone

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.

The Unsterile Cuckoo

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.

Captain Hurt

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.

When Irish Eyes Are Smiling

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.

The Mouse That Soared

The Bitch Is Back

The shadow of Rosalind Shays again darkens the door of the firm when she sues them for discrimination, while another lawsuit escalates racial tensions.

Happy Trails

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.

Lie Harder

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.

Armand's Hammer

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.

Smoke Gets in Your Thighs

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.

Something Old, Something Nude

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.

TV or Not TV

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.

Do the Spike Thing

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.

Spleen It to Me, Lucy

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.

Monkey on My Back Lot

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.

L.A. Lawless

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.

Second Time Around

Five 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 thirty 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.

Zo Long

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.

Book of Renovation, Chapter 1

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.

Leap of Faith

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 Haber, to look into the murder victim's husband a potential suspect while Sandy's parents, Ed and Rae, quarrel with Eli and each other over what's best for Sandy.

How Much Is That Bentley in the Window?

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.