With female Q.Cs or 'silks' in a tiny minority, barrister Martha Costello of the Shoe Lane chambers, is anxious to join that elite number by progressing through the courts. Following a successful acquittal in a murder trial, she is given two cases to defend at short notice--One is Mercedes Cordoba, a pregnant drugs mule for whom she pleads for mercy, based on Mercedes' poverty-stricken background. However, smooth fellow barrister Clive Reader, representing Mercedes's co-defendant, points to her previous, of which Martha was unaware, and she is sent down--though she is relieved to be out of the dealers' clutches. The other is Gary Rush, charged with robbing and assaulting elderly war hero Michael Dodd, though he has no confidence in her. Mr. Dodd commands sympathy in court but Martha demonstrates that Rush has been set up by a vengeful policeman, and he walks free. At a chambers party, Martha is irate when, in view of the day's business, she sees Reader snorting coke and pushes him downstairs. Her young pupil Nick backs her up by claiming that the fall was accidental.
—don @ minifie-1