At Christmas time, while everyone else at JAG is enjoying the happy time of the season, Bud & Harriet are at little Sarah's gravesite unveiling her headstone that has just been placed. Bud vows that it just can't end like this and insists on finding out what happened. Bud & Harriet approach Mic to have him represent the Roberts in their case against Dr. Gettis. Mic warns Bud to stop, leading Bud to realize that Mic can't represent them, as his practice is representing Dr. Gettis. Harriet tries to talk Bud out of pursuing the case, but her pleas are ignored by Bud.
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.