SYNOPSIS OF FOURTH EPISODE
This episode was filled with high drama and gritty action: certainly not just another average day in the life of "The Practice." It saw the culmination of the tobacco case and the bloody collapse of the Ronald Martin homicide prosecution.

You had the opportunity to see the attorneys in "The Practice" function together in their effort to prepare Lindsay for the Opening Statement of her life. Never mind that it happened to be her first jury trial. There may never be anything like it again. David vs. the tobacco Goliath. A task which is nearly impossible. As the trial loomed, you saw Lindsay suffer all of the pressure cascading around her. And although it appeared she would buckle, in the end, she pulled it out.

And when the trial finally began, Lindsay's opening was phenomenal. Great television. In summarizing what the Plaintiffs were prepared to do, Lindsay fully used her opportunity to lay out the health case against tobacco companies everywhere.

As it turned out, the opening statement was the culmination of the case, triggering a round of hard, no-flinch bargaining that produced a record $1.7 million settlement. Satisfaction at last for the long suffering Emerson Ray and the memory of his departed wife.

Of course all of the joy that the Ray case generated over the course of the episode, was offset by the conclusion of the Ronald Martin case and its bloody aftermath. The judge refused the Prosecution's motion to re-open the case and accept the testimony of the witness Bobby's office found. The jury never got to hear that Martin had tried to kill another woman and then paid her $300,000 to disappear. Without that testimony, the jury deliberated and reached a not-guilty verdict on all counts, resulting in the full release of Ronald Martin.

Ronald Martin's freedom was short-lived. Victim Donna Braun's father, Dr. Gerald Braun stalked Martin and shot him dead, thus beginning the next round: Commonwealth vs. Dr. Gerald Braun, with Bobby Donnell as counsel for Dr. Braun. And when Rabbi Winter admitted on a television talk show that he had, in effect, counseled the killing by approving the proposition of revenge, he was arrested and charged with being an accessory to murder. One more new case for "The Practice."