John "Jack" Turner is a maverick scion from an American political dynasty, a "true believer," who must reconcile his passion for the purity of law in the morally ambiguous world he inhabits, in which no one is who they appear to be. Content with working in a small pro-bono law clinic in Washington, D.C., at the urging of his more practical longtime friend and colleague, George Riley, Turner reluctantly accepts the position of managing partner in the sponsoring law firm of Lyon, LaCrosse, and Levine in order to save the clinic.