In a day, 2008 changed the fortunes of billions of people across the Earth. Samantha Kofer was one of them. Her fast track job on Wall Street had veered to a stop, and she had nothing to grab on except for a payless opportunity to work at a legal aid clinic. At the end of a year, there was a small chance she’d get her old job back, a really small chance. From the grand metropolis of Manhattan, her new job takes her to Brady, Virginia, set in the heart of a place she’d only read about: the Appalachia. Here, she works under Mattie Wyatt, who has lived here his entire life and heads the legal aid clinic. He teaches her about helping people with real problems. Samantha’s new job teaches her how to prepare an actual lawsuit, face a real courtroom, take a judge’s scoldings head on and receive threats from townsfolk who are displeased about having an urban lawyer in their town. Her work is pretty much cut out for her, but there’s one problem: Brady has a secret. This town is neck deep in the murky world of coal mining, and there is no law that the mining operations recognize. Samantha didn’t expect that here, she’d find herself at the head of the biggest litigations in recent times.