West Virginia lawyer, Jack Fabian, is a battle-hardened personal injury trial lawyer concentrating his practice in medical malpractice plaintiff's cases. Fabian, who has developed a penchant for big spending, expensive airplanes, top-shelf booze, and luxury vacations finds himself in 2005, feeling the adverse effects of the recently enacted repressive medical malpractice tort reform law in his state that has dulled his enthusiasm for the practice in general and malpractice law in particular. Through a series of unforeseen circumstances, Fabian reluctantly finds himself teamed up with a former adversary, Benjamin Darnell, a recently deposed partner in a large insurance defense law firm and becomes embroiled in a case against a young neurosurgeon who, the two contend, botched his first surgery since completing training.