Outlaws is a new half-hour black comedy series starring Phil Daniels set in the world of duty solicitors. But Kavanagh QC it ain't. If solicitors are in the front line of the legal service, duty briefs are the advance patrols: the poor bloody infantry foraging ahead in unfamiliar territory, gleaning intelligence, securing the beachhead and digging in until morning when the top brass arrive to take the salute. There are few victories, no medals, and like any dirty job you'd prefer someone else to do it. But above all, life in the trenches is a tight round. A duty brief's horizon rarely extends beyond the arenas of the police station and the Magistrate's Court. We'll never see a jury or a wig. Just interviews, bail hearings, committals, sentencing etc. It's not life in the fast lane, more like being stuck on the hard shoulder. But that's when things pass you by quickest.
Episodes
As the new trainee in the criminal law firm of Bagnall & Dunbar, Theodore Gulliver discovers he has a lot to learn. Unfortunately for him, Bruce Dunbar is the man who's going to teach him.
Gulliver's education continues as Dunbar tries to show him the benefits of co-operating with the police. But it's Dunbar who ends up with blood on his hands - and his shirt.
Dunbar tries and fails to curtail Gulliver's desire to stop and scoop. And Sarah makes herself unpopular by sticking to the letter of the law.
Dunbar is apoplectic when his office is burgled by one of his clients. Maybe this is the perfect opportunity for some self-examination?
When Dunbar smartens up for a favourite client, Sarah accuses him of actually caring. Gulliver, however, is getting tougher, and fears he's turning into his boss.
Dunbar is forced to take responsibility for his self-harming teenage daughter. Gulliver tries to garner sympathy for a drug-dealer with AIDS.
When he is forced to defend a blind racist, Gulliver has an identity crisis. Meanwhile Dunbar refuses to intervene in a violent marriage.
Gulliver hits the big time when he takes on a potentially explosive case and Dunbar finds himself left on the side-lines.
While Dunbar faces a financial crisis, Gulliver gets a visit from his dad, and learns he's become his own man.
Sarah's ambitions are thwarted when she realises she's in trouble and Dunbar's the only man who can help.
Dunbar is tempted by a financial offer from a smarter class of criminal. Gulliver is out of his depth in a domestic situation which is resolved by a surprisingly sympathetic Sarah.
Another day, another dogging case. Dunbar is representing ""can't understand nothing teenager"" Duane Allsop who tried to crash a dogging session but got a beating in the process. Unluckily for Dunbar, he won't be representing the cum-hungry slut in stockings and suspenders who turned his client down. That job falls to Dunbar's old contemporary, Dave Anderson.
