David "Skip" Ross, 19, a brilliant legal prodigy, dreams of becoming a great trial lawyer. When he can't land a job at a prestigious L.A. firm because he's too young, Skip ends up working for Grant Cooper. Once a great lawyer, now burned out by the realities of life, Cooper is barely scraping by in his beachfront law office. Together, Skip and Cooper become defenders of the accused and crusaders for the unjustly wronged. Their cases vary from stories ripped from the headlines to clever mysteries with procedural twists. Skip's middle-class parents, Deborah and Lenny Ross, and his underachieving younger brother, Tom, are all extremely proud of Skip's accomplishments but are also concerned for his well-being. Always the underdogs, forced to do the gritty work of finding clues and tracking down witnesses in the beautiful but often dangerous world of Southern California, Cooper teaches Skip to be a lawyer and a man, while Skip renews Cooper's faith in the law and himself.