For the Defense

Cosima Bernardin, poor-little-rich-girl lawyer and daughter of one of the country's richest bankers, is a junior partner in a prominent New York law office. But she's judged to be too pushy, and the small-minded senior members of the firm try to teach her a lesson by taking away her major client. She quits in a huff, starts her own practice and, mainly because of her family's connections, attracts several big clients, including a rock star and a movie idol. Cosima's biggest challenge is the case of a refugee Russian ballerina who is under threat of deportation by the State Department, and she finds herself pitted against both her former law firm and some nasty fundamentalist red-baiters. Several subplots intertwine sloppily: they involve Hupp, a one-legged 67-year-old copyright lawyer in love with Adela, a bald performance artist; Rick Loewenstein, Cosima's partner and sometime lover; Jerry Patchen, her rock-and-roll client and another of her lovers. Cosima is no slouch in the sex department. Cosima's father (a racist and bigot whom we're supposed to admire anyway because he's rich and charmingly old-fashioned) manipulates people behind the scenes. Harrington (Oberst) writes condescendingly. His descriptions are stale and repetitive, and not only are the characters one-dimensional and the plot unbelievable, but the story ends midstream. (July)