The play centres on Petey Maxwell, a lawyer in Toronto who is recovering from a stroke. Formerly a greedy corporate lawyer, he has reinvented himself as a champion of the underdog who runs a one-man legal office with the help of his secretary, Eleanor Downey. His first client is Gail, a woman whose husband has been framed for a crime by John "Babe" Connor, the wealthy and powerful publisher of an archly conservative tabloid newspaper; Connor's lawyer Sean, an aspiring politician, is a former law school classmate of Maxwell's who is now married to Maxwell's ex-wife. Maxwell's only other ally is Sarah, Eleanor's mentally ill sister. At the play's climax, Maxwell stages a mock trial in his office to charge Connor with being "incurably evil", with the trial presided over by Sarah.