L.A. Law Episode Rating Graph

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.