The Lincoln Lawyer (2022) is a drama series about a lawyer named Mickey Haller who is handed a legal practice unexpectedly and how he deals with the sudden inflow of cases as well as the secret conspiracy behind it all. The series is now streaming on Netflix.
Warning: This article contains heavy spoilers
Plot summary
A man is shot and killed in his car one night with the killer getting away with his briefcase that contained important documents. The next day, Mickey Haller (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo) is called in by a judge Holder (LisaGay Hamilton) to discuss something important.
The man murdered was a lawyer named Jerry Vincent, and the judge informs Mickey that Jerry’s entire legal practice has been signed over to him, including a high profile murder trial involving a tech billionaire who allegedly killed his wife and her lover.
She brings up his inactivity for the past year which was a result of an accident and subsequent drug addiction. She wants to make sure that Mickey is the right person to handle these cases that have been given to him to which he assures her that he is.
He immediately gets to work on making sense of what’s been handed to him with the help of his second ex-wife, Lorna (Becki Newton). The first order of business is asking the police and the investigating detective, Raymond Griggs (Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine), to leave Jerry’s office as his files are protected by the attorney-client privilege.
The first case on his docket is to defend a woman named Izzy Letts (Jazz Raycole) from a robbery and assault charge. Once he clears her name, he hires her to be his driver as payment since she doesn’t have any cash. Then he visits the tech billionaire, Trevor Elliot (Christopher Gorham), to convince him that he’s the right lawyer to take on his case.
Izzy and Mickey share a bond because they both happen to be addicts in recovery. Mickey also has a complicated relationship with his first ex-wife, Maggie (Neve Campbell), who is also the mother of his daughter and a prosecutor for the District Attorney’s office.
Maggie is working on a trafficking case against a wealthy man named Angelo Soto along with an LAPD detective named Lankford (Jamie McShane). They even have a star witness who plans to testify during the trial.
Mickey gets help from Lorna’s boyfriend, Cisco (Angus Sampson), to dig up any information related to his cases. Cisco is a very effective private investigator who Mickey trusts.
While Mickey deals with Trevor’s very strict conditions regarding the trial and how it will affect his image, Cisco and Lorna dig up other possible suspects related to Jan Rilz, the man found with Trevor’s wife. Mickey is also handed a case of one Eli Wimms, a veteran who has gone crazy and shot at a bunch of cops before being arrested.
Mickey tries to figure out why Jerry had taken the case in the first place, but Eli isn’t very cooperative unless Mickey can get him out of the mental health facility he was put into.
During their investigations, Mickey finds out that there is a huge amount of money that is missing from Jerry’s accounts. With the help of Griggs, they figure out that it was most possibly a bribe to someone in the Trevor Elliot case.
Mickey uses all the information he’s given and his intuition and figures out that one of the jurors was bribed, and that Trevor knew about it. He confronts him with this knowledge and Trevor tells him some yarn about being in deep with members of the Russian mob.
An anonymous note reaches the Judge about the dishonest juror and he is eventually replaced. All the while Trevor is very cagey about how Mickey is approaching this trial.
Maggie’s case hits a roadblock when her witness is murdered. She and Lankford look for a different approach and conclude that Soto’s girlfriend, Tanya is their next best bet. She asks Mickey to represent Tanya so that he can convince her to turn on Soto for the prosecution.
The case goes back and forth until Mickey finds out why Jerry took Eli Wimms’ case. He was arrested in the same patrol car that Trevor was put into just hours later. This explains the huge amount of gunshot residue on Trevor’s hands and clothes, which was a huge part of the prosecution’s case.
Mickey puts on the charm for his closing statement and ultimately the jury finds Trevor not guilty and acquits him. Mickey still feels that there is something fishy about Trevor’s trial and Jerry’s murder so he continues to dig into it.
He gets a call from a cop who says that they’ve pulled over Izzy but when he reaches the location, he is knocked by an unknown individual.
If you still have doubts about the ending, here’s a full breakdown.
The Lincoln Lawyer (2022) ending explained in detail (Episode 10: The Brass Verdict):
Freeing an innocent man
The man who attacked Mickey was the same man who was bribed as a juror in the Elliot case. While he’s fighting him off the police show up and Mickey ends up kicking him off a cliff.
He tells Griggs that he was the same person who probably killed Jerry but he doesn’t know how he’s connected to anything else. He even asks Cisco to dig up more information on him.
Mickey also has been working on a former case of his where a man was sentenced to 15 years in prison because his main witness fled before her testimony. He manages to track her down and she tells him that another detective had visited her at the time and threatened to charge her with a different offence unless she left town.
Mickey goes to Griggs and asks him about the character of these cops but Griggs is not willing to sell out his own.
Just desserts and a day in court
Mickey goes to meet Trevor one more time just to give him a piece of his mind after he was used during the trial. Trevor then goes to make an announcement about his company when he is shot by a woman who was in love with Jan Rilz and blamed Trevor for his death.
Mickey meets with Griggs and tells him that he has an idea of who was behind the bribes and Jerry’s murder. He asks Cisco to do a little more research and get the information to Griggs.
The witness that Mickey tracked down is finally testifying in court and Mickey brings the detective in question and proves that she was there, which opens up a can of worms for the authorities.
Griggs tells him something new about the case and he immediately rushes to Maggie and tells her that she needs to make a deal with her trafficking case.
Bringing down the big fish
The detective being questioned admits that she intimidated a witness under the orders of detective Lankford who was the supervising officer on that case. Mickey knew that this accusation would harm Maggie’s case and indirectly tried to warn her.
She faces him later that day and the two of them get into an argument and all the progress they were making in their relationship was gone in a flash.
Mickey goes to meet judge Holder for one last check-in and she claims that she is very impressed by how he has handled everything. He retorts saying that she should be impressed given that she tried so hard to derail him throughout.
He then states that he and his team were able to uncover that she was the one responsible for the jury tampering and Jerry’s murder and that they’ve already alerted the authorities who have substantial evidence against her for it. She is arrested while he continues to be the best damn lawyer he can possibly be.
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