Judging Amy

Vincent and Amy are frantic when Maxine disappears; Carole ignores a lump on her breast; Amy suspects a lawyer of exploiting starving children and also hears the case of two kids who attack a Live the Lord club and try to excuse it by saying that the club should not be meeting on school grounds.

Amy must decide the appropriate punishments for a high school gang leader who tortured an undercover police officer, and for a teenage girl who perpetrated day-trading fraud; Maxine helps an abused little girl at Sanctuary House locate her long-lost dog; Donna goes to annoying extremes to make Vincent's novel a success; Sean tries to get Maxine to spend more time at D.C.F. and less at Sanctuary House; before he sets off on a pilgrimage, Stuart does his best to seduce Amy.

Amy must rule on the fate of conjoined twins; Jared proposes to Maxine before taking a job in China; Carole tries to push Vincent away after she learns the lump on her breast is malignant.

Amy hears the case of two teenagers accused of causing the suicide of a classmate by deliberately posting lies about her sexual activity on their web site. The long arm of politics reaches out to Maxine and exacts a heavy penalty for her tirade against the lieutenant governor. Amy gives her support to Bruce's Gun 101 program. Vincent returns from his weekend trip and tells Donna that he and Carole flew to Las Vegas and eloped. Carole has already moved on to San Francisco, where Vincent will join her in a few days to be with her during her cancer surgery. Unaware that he hasn't mentioned any of this to his family, Donna lets the news slip to Amy. Amy tries, but fails, to reconcile with her brother. Maxine urges Vincent not to turn away from the love and support that his family is offering which will help him get through this crisis. She tells Amy and Vincent to knock it off and end whatever disagreement is causing them to be estranged from each other.

Amy must decide whether to modify a custody agreement and allow a woman to take her daughter to Paris for two years against the wishes of the girl's father; back to work at the DCF, Maxine takes on the case of ""Bubble Man"", a homeless man who is about to be arrested for blowing bubbles in the park without a permit, and shows Robert some tricks of the trade to save an abused boy; Bruce works with a mother who is about to lose custody of her son for not meeting the conditions of his probation because she is in denial about the emotional toll her son's disability has taken on her; Maxine brokers a peace settlement and gets Amy and Vincent speaking again by suggesting that Amy review Vincent's contract with the studio that has optioned his novel; Carole's condition worsens unexpectedly, and Vincent leaves hurriedly, amid many tears and in possession of the family's good luck totem, the ""surfing monkey"".

Amy asks Bruce to set her up with his friend, but it doesn't go quite the way she planned; Amy hears cases involving a woman who breastfeeds her 6 year old son and a couple who can't decide whether to send their ""mute"" daughter to therapy; Maxine goes to bat for an unhappy spelling bee champ; Gillian obsesses about getting Ned into an exclusive preschool.

Donna stumbles as she subs for Bruce as Amy's C.S.O. while he attempts to convince the probation officer of a teenager that Amy assigned to a diversionary program to keep the boy out of prison after a fight with members of his former gang; Maxine's nephew Kyle comes back into the family fold, much to Amy's displeasure; Amy must decide whether to commit a young boy who stole a rifle and slaughtered a yak as part of a coming-of-age ritual to a locked psychiatric facility, or turn him over to the sentencing circle of his Native American tribe; Kyle's medical knowledge helps Maxine solve the mystery of why five boys from an exemplary foster home have severe abrasions on their arms.

Amy feels responsible when three teenagers she sentenced to community service are killed by a drunken driver during their work detail, until Kyle gives her a new perspective on the situation; Maxine assists Shelly Tran in her investigation when the skeleton of a baby is unearthed in the backyard of a home owned by three elderly sisters; Kyle tries to adjust to working at Giggle Burger and living at Maxine's house; Amy must decide whether to allow an adventuresome couple to retain custody of the toddler they include in their extreme sporting activities.

Lauren asks if ""cheating"" was the reason her parents divorced; Bruce warns Amy that she's being set up after Judge Keeler asks to observe her in court; Maxine enlists Kyle's extreme sports expertise in supporting a teenager with low self-esteem; Amy presides over the sentencing hearing of a teenaged girl who assaulted three gang members with a baseball bat; a police officer asks Amy to officiate at her divorce ceremony; Bruce and Amy iron out some communication issues; Kyle and Amy finally have it out over the incident in the past that caused the rift in their relationship; Amy hears the case of teenager who wants to be emancipated so that he can contest his stepmother's decision to keep his comatose father on life support.

At the request of Vincent's editor, Amy picks up where her brother left off in his investigation of Judge Keeler; Kyle gets off to a rocky start in his new job as a counselor at Teen Harbor; Maxine helps a mother suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder retain custody of her children; Bruce meets an attractive young mother when he tries to set up a play date for Rebecca; Amy's sentencing a teenager guilty of multiple counts of disturbing the peace to listen to thirty hours of Broadway show tunes under Donna's supervision backfires loudly; Judge Keeler retaliates by setting Amy up for impeachment when she refuses his intimidation to drop her investigation.

After her brother Richard arrives in town looking for his son, Maxine initially refuses to put him in touch with Kyle, but later relents; in the process of helping Donna with her estate planning, Peter and Gillian agree to become Ariadne's guardian should something happen to Donna; as Maxine quarrels with Richard about the event that caused them not to speak for twelve years, it becomes apparent that Maxine blames her brother for Edward's early death; Bruce and Andrea hit it off during a play date for their daughters, and later go out on a date; Kyle refuses his father's offer to bail him out of his troubles; Maxine works to help a father regain visitation rights to his teenaged son; Kyle and Amy continue their discussion about the events that caused a rift in their relationship and find that they share responsibility and guilt for the events of that night; a young surrogate mother pregnant with twins who has no interest in keeping the babies comes before Amy in the middle of a custody

Barry invites Amy to a business dinner, where her outspokenness almost gets the better of her and the budding relationship with Barry; with Kyle's help, Maxine searches the streets for a runaway gay teen, and she later agrees to let him stay at her house until she finds him another foster home placement; Amy must decide if a teenager who wrote a play about killing bullies, joked about school shootings, and considers the Holocaust a warning to the ruling classes, presents a threat to society; Maxine's already strained patience with the way Brian is running Teen Harbor snaps when she witnesses a drug deal there, and she orders it closed, incurring Kyle's wrath; as Bruce prepares a recommendation for Amy on whether a woman whose alcoholism caused her to lose custody of her children should be reunited with them, he isn't entirely convinced that she has stopped drinking and decides to do a little surveillance, bringing along Andrea to keep him company.

Maxine reluctantly allows Eric to stay at her house when she's unable to find him the right placement; Amy makes a second date with Barry; Kyle helps a former drug addict who goes to extremes to find an apartment; Amy hears the case of a teen who is suing a tobacco company for causing his emphysema; Gillian's effort to expand her knowledge of black culture doesn't go so well.

Amy presides over a sad custody dispute in which neither parent wants a troubled teenager; Bruce sets down some ground rules with Andrea about their relationship; Amy is frustrated, bewildered, and angry when Barry fails to get in touch with her after their last date; Maxine and Kyle use their respective charms to find the administrator and the funding that will enable them to reopen Teen Harbor; Gillian's attempt to interest her painting teacher in Amy backfires, causing Peter to resort to Neanderthal behavior; Amy battles with Michael over the scope and expense of the upcoming birthday party he's hosting for Lauren.

Amy's suspicion that a little ""pretty girl voodoo"" is behind the case of a teenager who beat up the abusive ex-boyfriend of a girl on whom he had a crush is confirmed when prosecutor Jonathan Ashworth does a little digging and helps Amy serve up justice to all parties; when a confused and frightened teenager barricades himself with his siblings in their house and begins shooting at the police, Maxine risks her life to persuade him to put down his rifle and come with her to visit his hospitalized mother; a pregnant woman flees the jurisdiction to avoid losing custody of her baby to D.C.F. after Amy determines that she has done nothing to change the conditions under which she lost custody of her son two years earlier; Lauren's assignment for her life skills class, to prepare dinner for the family by herself, results in a creative dish inspired by a well-known trio not usually associated with the culinary arts.

When a teenager whom neither parent wanted and Amy placed in a locked facility escapes and comes into D.C.F. with bruises she says were caused by abuse at the facility, Maxine's decision to have her returned to the facility leads to tragedy; Amy attends the tenth reunion of her Harvard Law School class and is disheartened by how petty, mean-spirited, and sleazy her former law school best friends have become, until Barry shows up unexpectedly as her white knight and saves the day; Michael makes it obvious that he is still attracted to Amy, and expresses regret over their divorce and his marriage to Leisha; Maxine scoffs when Sean has all the files computerized, but changes her tune when he swiftly downloads information which helps them identify and locate a suicidal teenager.

The Gray house is completely ransacked by vandals who appear to have targeted the house after receiving an adverse judgment in Amy's courtroom, and it takes all of Amy's persuasiveness to convince herself and her daughter that they are safe; after Joe McKenzie takes over at Teen Harbor, Kyle disagrees with his strict approach but they settle their differences after Joe sees how Kyle uses his training to treat an epileptic teenager; Maxine enlists Sean's help in her own investigation into Pamela Taylor's death at Buckley Hills; Amy hears the case of parents accused of abuse for transferring their son to a new school every year to get him more easily noticed by the scouts who can recommend him for a college basketball scholarship; Maxine finally finds the perfect foster father for Eric right under her very nose, although it takes a little convincing for both the adult and the teenager to see the wisdom of her choice; against his better judgment, Bruce spends the night at Andrea's house,

Maxine is saddened when Jared fails to call her upon his return from China, so Sean arranges a casino night fund raiser to cheer her up; a born-again teenager charges her mother with parental neglect for working as a stripper, and Amy must decide whether to place the girl in foster care; Donna confronts Kyle after she finds a syringe and morphine in his room drawers and is relieved to hear that he keeps it as a reminder that he is capable of making the choice to stay clean every day; after his daughter tells him about her ill-timed encounter with Bruce, David Solomon files a complaint against Andrea, who immediately ends her relationship with Bruce for fear of losing custody; responding to a message from Bruce attempting to explain the situation, Solomon shows up at the courthouse and threatens, taunts and insults Bruce, who is arrested and jailed after he knocks Solomon to the ground with a punch.

Maxine works more tirelessly than ever on the Pamela Taylor investigation as she assists an attorney in finding other abused teens who are willing to join in the Taylors' class action suit against Buckley Hills; when a social worker in a child abuse case appears in her courtroom with an attitude, and without any of the periodic reports she was ordered to file with the court, Amy cites her for contempt and has her arrested when she discovers that the social worker is unaware of the child's present whereabouts; later that evening at the dinner table, Maxine takes vociferous objection to Amy's ruling and accuses her of displacing her fears and frustration about Maxine's health onto a good social worker who is overworked and overwhelmed; realizing that her mother is right, Amy has the social worker released from jail; when Donna discovers how much Kyle regrets not completing his medical training, she prods him into resuming his studies; Amy presides at the sentencing hearing for two young

Amy turns into a henpecking daughter upon Maxine's return from the hospital, forcing her mother to suffer through a healthier diet and a walking group for seniors; after Maxine questions the wisdom of living with Amy, they agree it would be best for Amy to move out; Amy's worried that Bruce is planning to enter a guilty plea on his assault charge; Kyle is forced to tell a runaway that she's dying; Amy hears the case of a high school student who hides her baby in a storage room during class.

Amy, Maxine and Lauren have trouble adjusting to their new living arrangements; Vincent returns for a visit to smooth over the waters between his mother and sister and persuade them to live together again; after Lauren tearfully calls Michael about the move, he suggests to Amy that Lauren come to live with him; Amy presides over a custody dispute involving a father who refuses to take a paternity test; Donna dates one of Amy's law school classmates; Amy ends her relationship with Barry.

Although Amy tries to make the best of it, she and Lauren are still miserable in their small apartment; unable to avoid running into Jared and his date at the diner while looking and feeling her worst, Maxine gives him the cold shoulder, but Jared remains undeterred in his affection for her and finally gets her to accept an engagement ring; Michael sues for full legal custody of Lauren; just as Amy is prepared to ask her mother if she can move back in, she discovers that Maxine has puts her house up for sale; Bruce pleads no contest on his assault charge and receives a suspended sentence; Amy hears a case of a woman who locked her children in the trunk of her car because she had no one to care for them while she was at work; Maxine ends her medical leave after her dentist asks her to investigate the possible abuse of a teenaged patient; Bruce is fired and the dreaded Ian Jankowski is promoted to C.S.O. and assigned to Amy's courtroom.