Bad Lawyer — Stephen Solomita

To keep his practice alive, a desperate lawyer takes a case defending a battered wife

Just seven years after he left law school, Sid Kaplan was one of New York's top defense attorneys. With a glittering style and a hunger for competition, he was as fierce as they come. He was the go-to lawyer for Manhattan's toughest, flashiest criminals -- until his mother's death wrecked his confidence. Suddenly, the only way to sustain his sixteen-hour days was a ceaseless stream of cocaine and scotch, a combination that ruined his life's work in a matter of months.

His only remaining employees are Caleb and Julia -- a pair of ex-clients who don't mind working for irregular pay. Sid's latest bum case is Priscilla Sweet, a drug addict with priors, violent tendencies, and a dead husband whom she may or may not have killed in self-defense. She also has dangerous friends, which means that defending Prissy will make Sid famous again -- either on the front page, or in the obituaries.