A anxious rookie federal public defender's initiation
into federal court, where the lawyers and judges are smarter, the
clients more demanding, the obstacles to "success" far more
daunting, and the personal toll unrelenting.

SYNOPSIS:

This series is about Federal Public Defenders. Unlike other shows that depict them as useless as penknives in a gun fight, AFDs shows the real deal, lawyers who are not inexperienced, underpaid, or swamped with hundreds of cases. These are the all stars of the criminal defense bar; lawyers who are significantly better than everyone else.

Why? It's the people. Acerbic, type A litigator Teresa Gonzalez, able to control any case, any witness, or any client. Newbie Sandra Carlson, 27, African American, from the county PD's office, learning the ropes of federal court. Eddie Chu, 38 year old Chinese American. Self-confident, willful, confrontational. A true believer to the core.

The opposition? Evangelical Christian and ethically challenged federal prosecutor Lorna Robinson, working with agents who commit misconduct in 30% of their cases. As well as former prosecutor judges who routinely submarine their best work.

Despite their strengths, clients are convicted all the time. Surely that means a supportive vibe in the office. Not exactly. Teresa disrespects African American paralegal Denise Johnson and covets branch chief David Marcus's job. How about at home? Not if you're Investigator Sonya Chavez, who returns to a silent household where her daughter won't speak to her father after he shot the daughter's boyfriend.

Well, at least they're all doing God's work, helping protect the rights of the innocent, the under represented, and the misunderstood. Not exactly. Just about all of their clients committed some crime, just maybe not the one they're charged with. Many are also easily understood: they're immoral, selfish, or sometimes just assholes. The only shared characteristic of federal defender clients is that they have no money -- or no money that the government knows about.

What we learn during this series is that it really doesn't matter to these lawyers who the client is, what she did, or whether the only human on the planet who actually likes the client is her mother. Even the retired-in-place Assistant Federal Defender Robert Blackburn has the time and the inclination to bond -- eventually -- with the people he represents. And, like the other attorneys in his office, he'll fall on any sword he hasn't used to stab the opposition, to protect the people he represents.

Finally, what AFDs presents in every episode (often more than once) is something sorely lacking or invisible in other legal dramas: realistic ethical dilemmas that confront criminal defense attorneys every day. As Teresa puts it to her accused fraudster client:

"Stop. Don’t tell me what you did or didn’t do. If you change your story down the line, I can’t put a lying defendant on the stand...I don’t give a shit. I’m not a cop and I’m not a prosecutor. I don’t lie and I don’t call witnesses to commit perjury. "

Hiding evidence, misrepresenting themselves, threatening witnesses are just a few things on the laundry list of things they won't do. Yet, they remain more effective than the lawyers on television and in real life who do. It's an art, that only these attorneys can accomplish.