Cleaver prepares to defend family friend Dr. Bruce Chandler, when a very incriminating DVD finds its way to the local police. Meanwhile, Barney won't speak to him, and ex-wife Wendy blames him for Fuzz's predicament, so Cleaver turns to gambling and cocaine, scoring another beating from Mick Corella's stand-over man. Then a homeless Scarlet arrives on his doorstep, followed closely by Missy railing at the realities of partner David's new political life. And when Wendy arrives looking for Fuzz, Cleaver is left reeling. A call from Joe Sandilands has Missy scurrying back to dependable David, while Cleaver seeks solace in another line of coke.
Whilst barrister Cleaver Greene's ex-wife may call him unreliable, his son will call him a mate. To his learned friends at the bar table he is a real wag, and to most judges he is an outrage. To the Tax Office, he is a defendant, to a certain brothel owner a legend, and to his former cocaine dealer a tragic loss.
The clients he loves the most are those that appear to be utterly hopeless. He will do whatever it takes to defend and save life's truly lost souls. The big sinners. Its drug lords. Its cannibals. Its bestialites. And at the same time, he will struggle to save himself, to stop himself falling back into the abyss that has characterised most of his self-destructive adult life thus far.
Despite his own hopelessness, his wit and charm have won him hordes of companions over the years. Most nights of the week, there is no shortage of invitations: dinner with a judge, drug dealers, or his copper mates.
He tends to wake up bruised. Physically. Emotionally. Spiritually. Usually it's a combination thereof. Occasionally he wonders how his life came to this. Living in a studio above a café in the Cross, without his wife and son, in love with a prostitute, defending hopeless cases.