The entire second series of this television drama starring John Thaw as one of the country's leading criminal advocates in London, who has worked his way up from a northern working class background. In 'True Commitment', when a right-wing skinhead is stabbed during a clash between radical left-wingers and a group of Neo-Nazis, the guilty party is difficult to pin down. Is it Mark Holland? Or his rich girlfriend Miriam Jacobs? Or was it an accident? Differing statements add to the confusion, and Kavanagh knows that his prosecution of Holland will be a truly difficult case. In 'Men of Substance' Kavanagh takes on the prosecution of two men charged with smuggling heroin into the country. The two men, Patrick Bennett and Kevin Gregson, are being represented by the icy Susannah Dixon, and Kavanagh knows he has a battle on his hands in the courtroom. Meanwhile, his wife is threatened by two of Gregson's heavies so he becomes even more determined to get a conviction. In 'The Burning Deck' Kavanagh and his friend and colleague Eleanor Harker (Geraldine James) are both in Portsmouth defending clients on charges of arson at their naval court martial. The tribulations of the trial bring the lawyers closer together, and Eleanor confides that her marriage has broken down. Meanwhile, Julia Piper (Anna Chancellor) has to decide whether to accompany her boyfriend to his new job in Nairobi. In 'A Sense of Loss' Kavanagh and Julia Piper find themselves defending 18-year-old Paul Warwick, who is charged with the murder of a policewoman while breaking and entering a newsagents. Although Paul confessed in his first interview, he is now adamant that he was at home with his brain damaged younger brother and single mother on the night in question. Investigating further, the lawyers soon discover that there is more to the case than meets the eye. 'A Stranger in the Family' sees Kavanagh joining Julia on the case of student David Lomax, who has sustained spinal injuries and brain damage in an accident at the Thameside recycling centre where he had his holiday job. Although specialists have asserted that David will always be a burden to his family, the defence counsel argue that David is not as mentally disabled as he pretends to be. Finally, in 'Job Satisfaction' Kavanagh, defending Caroline Wicks against the charge that she and her brother Sam murdered their father and stepmother, finds his concentration slipping in court when he receives some bad family news. His father is seriously ill following a stroke, and there are more upheavals in store at home.