Judging Amy

Ten years after her marriage to New Yorker Michael Cassidy, corporate lawyer Amy Gray is separated, living back in Connecticut at her mother Maxine Gray's with pre-teen daughter Lauren, who misses daddy. Amy starts sitting in as a novice judge in the Hartford County Superior Court family law division. She soon feels out of her depth, professionally, and accepts advice from her mother, officially retired after 28 years as social worker but 'counseling' full time, while resenting being mothered. Also living at home is Amy's sensitive brother, unemployed literature graduate Vincent Gray.

Amy is thrown into the dog-eat-dog world of the short calendar, with some 54 cases, and decisions must be made quickly. She is called to an ER, where a doctor wants to terminate medication being given to a critically ill infant. Lauren is having troubles at school, and Amy has a confrontation with Lauren's new teacher. Adding to Amy's troubles, Maxine decides to return to work.

Ma finally admits the car she inherited from dad has had its time, but allows Peter to talk her out of settling for one that she and Vincent agreed on. Amy dumps her daughter's sleepover guests on ma, who shamelessly passes the kids on to Vincent. He takes this as proof that she never took his writing ambition seriously. Filling in for a sick judge, Amy presides over her first-ever, civilian jury trial, about minor Josh Spellman, who shot his girlfriend, Janette Harper, with his parents' gun, for which they may have to pay damages if held negligent.

In the hardware-store Vincent meets a woman, painter Chris Osborne, who offers him a date and to pay him for publicity copy-writing. Vincent isn't even put off when he meets her teenage daughter, Lori. The presiding judge dumps a dangerous case on Amy: Thomas Bell, a 10 year comatose boy, supposed to work wonders and suffering stigmata in his grandmother's care, who, according to the physician suffers under abusive attention. However the case is decided by an unexpected maneuver beyond Amy's

A death threat, coupled with Maxine's disapproval, puts a crimp in Amy's blossoming relationship with Tracy; Vincent begins to feel like he is Chris's pet project; Maxine rekindles an old friendship; Amy officiates at Donna's wedding to a convict; Maxine helps a second-generation foster teenager keep her infant son out of the system.

Sparks fly between Amy and Stuart; he appeals her decision, then later asks her for a date. Maxine places a gifted, chronic run-away teenager. Donna moves into Vincent's apartment. Amy presides over a Munchausen by Proxy syndrome case.

Amy orders an attorney to leave criminal court case to attend her triple juvenile case. Despite his initial indignation, the judge supports an offer made to her to transfer to the criminal justice, which would be for at least a year, but dose she want cases 'when it's already too late'? Dr. Brent Reynolds is charged for taking the belt to his self-admittedly willful son Seth's backside a few times a week. Vincent counsels Donna Kozlowski about disappointing conjugal visits

Michael's insistence upon joint custody of Lauren after Amy requests an increase in child support payments dooms the divorce mediation process; Maxine wants nothing to do with any celebration of her 60th birthday; Amy must decide whether a college senior should be charged as an adult for a fatal hit-and-run accident that occurred when he was 15; Michael's attempt to win Vincent over to his side in the custody battle ends badly; Amy hears a father's petition which contests the divorce agreement requiring him to pay for his daughter's college education; Maxine deals with combative divorced parents who cannot seem to manage a peaceful exchange of their three small children.

Amy must decide if a young boy accused of shaking his infant sister to death is guilty of murder; Maxine fights to keep a 10-year-old girl away from her abusive stepfather; Vincent struggles with the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder; Amy finds herself in a sticky situation when she accepts a date with the father of one of Lauren's classmates, and then learns that he is a child advocacy attorney scheduled to appear in her court; Vincent gets better acquainted with Lisa.

The Gray family is excited now Vincent's first book is suddenly in the stores, but he worries about any bad criticism he might get, especially in the New York Times, as the negative comments would break his career rather then launch it. Amy tries a case where a German-descended father's anti-German wife, who calls him a Nazi, drove him to flee with their children to Germany, and a claim by an accused woman to have been asked to satisfy a judge 'orally' in chambers. Meanwhile Maxine has to put up Peter's rather arrogant prospective adoption child's pregnant mother.

Vincent has writer's block, even Donna's poem seems more inspired, so he postulates for another reporter cadetship. Amy looses control emotionally during a custody trial, while unable to discipline Lauren, and even dreams of kissing her clerk. Maxine finds out the root is missing a man and diagnoses a sleepwalking youngest boy in a family of five as victim of torturous tickling.

Vincent is now a Hartford Examiner reporter, but objects to a sensationalist assignment to cover a case about a house-father killed while committing a crime cross-dressed; Maxine knew him and scolds all modern journalism. Amy can't handle Lauren making friends with her ex's new partner, who allows the girl to pierce her ears. Amy accepted a class in Yale law school but doesn't keep her promises in class and rants about family law being the noblest, most demanding branch and court job. Maxine finds re-offending problem boy Joe Broussard is abused by reputable child psychologist Dr. Amanda Kubiak.

A man with obsessive-compulsive disorder tries to regain custody of his daughter. At work, Maxine finds out a coworker is embezzling money.

Heeding the request of counsel to deliver one of her "rants" at a sentencing hearing, Amy lectures a young drug dealer whose mother has made tremendous sacrifices to provide him with a better life; much to Peter's dismay, Maxine accepts a date from an attractive man she meets at the diner; Amy travels with Bruce to a small town to hear a case centered on the misdiagnosis and over-medication of its teenage boys; as her abductor's case comes to trial, Lisa and Vincent argue when her fears for the possibility of acquittal, and thus her safety, increase; pending the outcome of an investigation, Susie is back at work after a one-week paid suspension and, over Maxine's objections, sets in motion a chain of events which eventually leads to the death of a young mother; Amy and Bruce have divergent reactions when confronted with intolerance during their trip; Maxine unsuccessfully tries to resign, and ends up being blackmailed into accepting the position of DCF supervisor until a replacement for Susie can be found.

At the trial, Liz twists the truth to get 'just' revenge and blames honest lover Vincent for 'not supporting' her - they break up. Amy is ruthless on two otherwise upright students from fine homes who claim the rape-drug Rohypnol they gave a girl was an ill-considered 'experiment'. Maxine has a millionaire courter, Jared Duff, who made a fortune inventing a search engine, and doubts whether to stay on in charge of child welfare.

Maxine gets a new supervisor at DCF.; Donna becomes stressed when Oscar's attorneys petition to have his conviction reversed; Amy and Maxine are at odds over having Maxine's terminally ill client testify in a case Amy is hearing; Vincent counsels Donna against telling Oscar about her attraction to other men, and reassures her that her feelings are normal.

After going on the date from hell with a Yale professor, Amy has one last fling with Michael the day their divorce becomes final; Maxine returns a stowaway boy to his mother; when Donna and Vincent persuade a reluctant Evie to deliver her baby in the hospital instead of at home, she insists they, instead of Gillian and Peter, act as her birthing coaches; Amy assigns a unique condition of probation to a bright and feisty teenager; Maxine fears that she has contracted Alzheimer's disease after suffering cognitive lapses, and is relieved to discover that it is only a concussion sustained when she bumped her head on a piece of furniture; Evie's son is born, surprising the family with his interracial heritage.

Accusations of misconduct are filed against Amy and Bruce. Maxine meets Jarod"s son, who suspects her motives. Donna learns she is pregnant. An unstable man (who went to school with Vincent) reacts violently to Amy's ruling about his sons.