The Law Firm, Episode 6: Bang, Bang, She Shot Him Down

One by one the associates enter the Law Firm. The Perky Receptionist Who Has Far More Personality Than Anyone Else On This Show has the final four choose a folded card from her desk. On each card is a combination which will open a briefcase in the conference room. Michael enters the conference room first, finds his briefcase, and takes a seat. Deep goes to the briefcase opposite of Michael, praying that it will open, as he really doesn’t want to work with Michael. It’s his lucky day! Aileen’s briefcase teams her up with Deep. Olivier and Michael will be working together.

Roy Black enters the conference room and has the lawyers listen to a 911 tape. We hear a woman’s voice say, “I just shot a man at my house. I’m going to need some help here. He was outside trying to get in my bedroom window. He said he was drunk, and he didn’t know what he was doing. I could not see him, he was hiding behind a bush. Here comes an ambulance.” Roy explains that Lisa Pelland shot and killed Jay Medina, who was on her property. The grand jury declined to indict her. Now Jay’s widow, Dena, is suing her for wrongful death. Roy says that a man is dead and it is their job to find out who is responsible. As the crime scene is in Santa Fe, New Mexico, the private jet will be taking off in one hour. He wishes the teams luck and leaves the room.

The two teams each take a case file from the table. Michael and Olivier find they will be representing Lisa Pelland, the Defendant, and immediately get ready to head for the airport. Aileen and Deep will represent the Plaintiff, Dena Medina.

It’s 48 hours before the trial. The Plaintiff team plans to keep it simple. They are not trying to send Lisa Pelland to jail, they are trying to send the message that her actions were unacceptable. She went outside, in the dark, and shot two bullets, not knowing who was in the bushes or what was going on.

Michael thinks it’s going to be difficult to prove that Jay Medina was after Lisa. One of the shots was fired into his back. He thinks the frightening thing about this case is that a man is dead, and the woman that shot him never actually saw him. They need to prove what Lisa did that night was reasonable.

At the Pelland home, Lisa walks Michael and Olivier through the events that took place the night of the shooting. She had heard a noise outside, so she picked up her gun and went out to investigate. She explains that she saw a shadow. She told the person that she had a gun and was prepared to use it. She felt more scared, and said, “Stop! Freeze!” When she felt intense danger, she fired the gun. At first, she didn’t call 911 because she thought it was an animal. She further explains to her team that she never goes outside without her pistol; it’s second nature. She even takes her gun with her when she goes to the movies!

Michael and Oliver then meet with the detective who was the lead agent in the criminal case investigated by the Santa Fe Police Department. The detective shares that Dena and Jay Medina had separated. Dena had stated that her husband had started drinking again, and that he became violent when he drank. She had indicated that she had always suspected that her husband was a peeping tom because he would take binoculars with him when he would leave the house at night. The detective says that the night of the shooting, Jay Medina wore his T-shirt inside out to make himself less noticeable in the darkness.

Plaintiff Dena Medina meets with her team of Deep and Aileen. She explains how the police came to her house and informed her that her husband had been shot and killed. She didn’t see her husband until he was at the funeral home, wrapped in an Indian blanket with an eagle feather in his hair. Dena says that she is her husband’s last voice, and she wants someone to hear it. Her husband didn’t deserve to be shot in the back. She feels Lisa Pelland should have called 911, and her husband could have been prosecuted to the full extent of the law, but it shouldn’t have ended with his death.

Aileen and Deep now travel to Santa Fe to visit the crime scene. Standing outside Lisa Pelland’s home, Deep says that Jay had been standing on some steps, looking in Lisa’s window. After climbing from the steps, Jay was walking away from Lisa when he first got shot. After moving a few feet further, he fell to his back on the sidewalk next to Lisa’s home. Deep tells us that there was no doubt that Lisa shot him intentionally. She pointed the gun in his direction and intended to pull the trigger.

Lisa goes to the law firm to meet with the Defense team. It is their last meeting before tomorrow’s trial, and the lawyers need to prepare her to testify in front of the jury. Olivier finds Lisa to be a very difficult client to work with. His trying to make her sound convincing as well as human has been a huge task. Lisa finds it outrageous that she has to defend herself. The attorneys explain to her that they want her to come off sympathetic to the jury. She’s to tell her story in her own words, in a way that is credible. If she becomes combative and starts talking about how she carries a gun everywhere she goes, they will have a problem. It is important for her to convince the jury that she was scared out of her wits. Lisa says there is no question about that.

Dena Medina enters the Law Firm for her final meeting with the Plaintiff team. Deep says that Jay Medina’s character is the most important thing they have to keep out of court. Dena quietly explains to her team that everything has gotten twisted. She can’t believe that she and her husband are the only people in the world who had arguments and trouble. There’s nobody that can say that they weren’t going to be together. Deep shares that he and Aileen have a lot at stake. They not only have to win this case for Dena, but for the memory of Jay Medina.

The teams and their clients file into the courtroom, and take their seats on either side of the courtroom. Michael tells us that this is huge case. His client shot and killed an intruder, and now she’s being sued for everything she has. They need to be sure her voice is heard in the courtroom today.