Joe Watson has been to court exactly once - to be sworn in as a lawyer. He's a Webhead, a research geek who sits in front of a screen all day in the plush officers of his smart firm, looking for copyright violations in video games. But there's been a murder, a 'hate crime' and the fearsome Judge Stang has assigned the case to Watson. Hie wife and the senior partners are as eager as he is to have the case transferred to another lawyer - but Judge Stang's decsions are never revoked and Watson finds himself hurled into a maelstrom of Bigotry, murder and seduction. In a legal nightmre defending a violent client whose guilt seems certain, Watson's only allies are a diminutive, foulmouthed punk defence lawyer, and a brilliant, deliviously sexy neuroscientist whose interest in the case drifts unsettlingly between the pseronal and professional. And when his wife and kids leave, his firm disowns him and his client's gung-ho militia 'friends' start to creep out of the woods, Watson feels he's having a very bad time...