Rabb is assigned to prosecute a man accused of hugging his wife's lover after finding them alone together on the beach at night. The accused, after also being called a wife beating woman hater, demands a woman lawyer to defend him. MacKenzie is assign against her adamant objections. While the man's wife is the prosecution's main witness since she says she witnessed the cuddle, he claims he was home asleep the night of the cuddle. Rabb and Mac must work from their opposite sides on the court to find out what really occurred the night of the cuddle.
After being diagnosed with night blindness, Lt. Cmdr. Harmon Rabb, an F-14 Tomcat fighter pilot, is forced to change careers. Cmdr. Rabb chooses to join the Navy's Judge Advocate General (JAG) Corps. There he both defends and sometimes prosecutes Navy and Marine Corps defendants. He is sometimes assisted by fellow lawyer, Lt. Sarah "Mac" MacKenzie, and his other fellow JAG staff.
Many of Rabb's cases require him to both keep up his F-14 qualifications and travel the world, in order to bring justice to the cases he is trying.
Rabb must also deal with the fact that his father, also a former Navy pilot, never returned home after being held prisoner after he was shot down in North Vietnam. Rabb believing his father is still alive continues the search he has pursued to find his father, since his teens.