Extraordinary Attorney Woo

In 2000, Woo Young-woo is a seemingly nonverbal child on the autism spectrum. When her father, Woo Gwang-ho, is attacked by a neighbor's jealous husband, she finally speaks—citing definitions of assault memorized from her father's legal library.

At her lavish wedding prepared by the Daehyeon Hotel, bride Kim Hwa-young trips on her dress, exposing herself and her tattoo of the Buddha. Humiliated, her father, Kim Jeong-gu, rejects his lawyers' advice to accept the hotel's generous refund and hires Hanbada instead. Determined to outdo rival law firm Taesan, Seon-young agrees to pursue ₩1 billion in compensation. A wedding gift to the bride's family of land worth ₩33.2 billion will not occur due to the botched wedding, which Young-woo suggests entitles Jeong-gu to special damages, despite his daughter's unhappiness with the arranged marriage.

Kim Jeong-hoon, a young autistic man, is discovered apparently attacking his older brother, a brilliant medical student who dies intoxicated with mysteriously broken ribs. Their father, a Hanbada client, asks the firm to handle Jeong-hoon's defense. Young-woo, following her father's advice on getting through to her as a child, tries to communicate with Jeong-hoon through his love of Pengsoo. Young-woo and Jun-ho find evidence that the older brother tried to hang himself, but his parents refuse to accept that he was suicidal.

Hanbada is hired by ATM manufacturer Ihwa, who accuses rival company Geumgang of copying their technology, which Geumgang claims is an open-source design Ihwa is fraudulently trying to patent. "Wild card" Young-woo leads the case alongside her competitive colleague, "tactician" Kwon Min-woo, who openly sabotages her. Geu-ra-mi and Jun-ho advise Young-woo how to detect when people are lying. Imha's convincing false testimony results in an injunction against Geumgang.

Young-woo shows Min-woo a letter from the head of Geumgang begging her to pursue the truth as an honorable attorney, but he reminds her that their duty is to win for their client. Geumgang tracks down the last remaining ATM from a defunct company that used the same design, proving the technology pre-dated Imha's patent. The injunction is lifted, but Imha has already taken over Geumgang's contracts and ruined their business. Young-woo displays the letter on the wall of her office as a reminder to herself.

Young-woo and her colleague Choi Soo-yeon become emotionally invested in defending Gye Hyang-sim, a North Korean defector. Five years earlier, she was arrested after demanding money from a badly beaten debtor but fled to care for her young daughter and has now come forward to accept punishment. A drunken miscommunication leads Min-woo to mistakenly tell Soo-yeon that Jun-ho has feelings for her. Arguing that the victim's wounds were caused by her abusive husband, Young-woo questions the doctor who examined her, who admits his bias against defectors.

Young-woo argues that under North Korean law, the defendant would be guilty of a lesser crime, but Hyang-sim confesses that she intended to get the money at any cost. While the jury deliberates, Young-woo and Soo-yeon sneak into the judge's chambers with a final plea for leniency. Telling Soo-yeon about mother whales' bond with their children, Young-woo struggles with her own mother's abandonment. The jury unanimously sentences Hyang-sim to four years in prison, but the judge imposes probation instead, in light of her honest confession.

Young-woo defends an eccentric young man who has adopted the humorous name "Bang Gu-ppong" (which can be translated as "fart") and is charged with kidnapping a busload of children who were supposed to attend his mother's hagwon. Instead, Gu-ppong—self-declared leader of the "Children's Liberation Army"— took them into the woods to play. Jun-ho and Young-woo learn the children are forced to study all day and night, prompting Gu-ppong to try to free them of the intense pressure from parents and schools.

A heartfelt plea from Gu-ppong's mother convinces the children's mothers not to pursue a lawsuit. Abandoning her team's plan to deem Gu-ppong mentally unfit, Young-woo helps him declare his philosophy of play as a "political offender". Myung-seok chastises Min-woo for antagonizing Young-woo. The mothers agree to let their children attend the trial, where Gu-ppong leads them in a joyous recitation of his motto: play, be healthy, and be happy. Young-woo struggles to demonstrate her affection for Jun-ho, and they finally confess their feelings for each other, but she runs away.

Young-woo intervenes when a young man, Yang Jeong-il, is arrested on the subway. Charged with quasi-rape of Shin Hye-yeong, a woman with intellectual disabilities, Jeong-il claims that he and Hye-yeong are in a loving relationship, and Young-woo agrees to defend him. Jeong-il's affectionate texts with Hye-yeong are contradicted by her statement to the police. After meeting Young-woo without her overprotective mother, Hye-yeong testifies that the relationship was consensual, but the prosecution asserts that the sexual encounter drove her to self-harm. The jury finds Jeong-il not guilty of sexual assault, but the judge sentences him to two years in prison as a sex offender.

Hanbada is hired by Shin Il-soo, who bought lottery tickets with two gambling buddies, one of whom reneged on their promise to split the winnings after his ticket won the ₩6 billion jackpot. A casino employee witnessed their agreement to share the prize but is unwilling to testify as an undocumented immigrant. Il-soo persuades employee Choi Da-hae to testify about the agreement instead, and the judge rules that the prize must be shared between the three men.

Young-woo realizes Il-soo is having an affair with Da-hae and plans to divorce his wife, Sung Soo-ji. Young-woo and Jun-ho try to warn Soo-ji without violating attorney-client privilege, but her abusive husband is killed in a car accident, and she inherits his prize money. Soo-yeon's new boyfriend is revealed to be a con artist preying on women with elite jobs, and Young-woo finds herself thinking about Jun-ho as often as she does about whales.

Myung-seok's team defends an insurance company in a gender discrimination case. Faced with downsizing, the company had employed 112 married couples and threatened the husbands' jobs if their wives did not resign instead, persuading most married women to quit. Activist attorney Ryu Jae-sook represents the only two women willing to take on the company, and her belief in an attorney's duty to protect vulnerable people leaves Young-woo conflicted.

Exploiting this, Min-woo tries to frame Young-woo by sending Jae-sook damaging Hanbada documents, but she is protected by Jae-sook's goodwill. Jae-sook submits evidence that the company's human resources manager was directly ordered to force female employees to resign; nevertheless, the judge dismisses the plaintiffs' claims of discrimination. Undeterred, Jae-sook invites Young-woo and Soo-yeon to a rooftop party with her and the plaintiffs, and returns the documents.

Myung-seok decides to visit a doctor after the events of the previous episode. The Hanbada team soon head to Jeju Island, along with Dong Geu-ra-mi and Kim Min-sik, after Young-woo accepts a case involving her landlady's father being charged an admission fee for being in the area of a local heritage site there, a temple called Hwangjisa, even though he had no intention to visit.

At the hospital, the other lawyers learn that Myung-seok has been diagnosed with stage III stomach cancer. The Hanbada team decides to find the owner of Haengbok Noodles at Young-woo's suggestion but are unable to make meaningful progress. Ji-su visits Myung-seok in the hospital, exasperated that he has not changed despite not seeing her in five years. After speaking with Ji-su, Young-woo doubts that she would be able to make Jun-ho happy and initiates a breakup. The trial concludes with Hanbada's victory and the closure of the admission fee booth.

An employee working at Raon becomes the victim of spear phishing from an unknown hacker. As a result, millions of users' financial records are compromised. Jang Seung-jun takes the place of Myung-seok as leading attorney on the case, as the latter recuperates from surgery. However, he is dismissive of Young-woo and proves incompetent on the first day of court proceedings to the point of displeasing Han Seon-young. The CEO of Raon, In-cheol, tries to bribe the judge with Seung-jun, but the move backfires. Visiting Myeong-seok in the hospital, Young-woo is advised by him to lie low and confide in her peers.

The next day, In-cheol ingests cyanide and is rushed to the hospital. The Hanbada team is swarmed by reporters. Seung-jun abandons his coworkers and flees. Without him, they regroup at Hairy's Pub, where Young-woo realizes a crucial fact about the hacking. The team brings new information to Seung-jun, who loses his temper at Young-woo, kicking her off the case. However, Su-yeon keeps what Young-woo said in mind and goes against Seung-jun's arguments. Min-woo follows up, leaving a good impression on the judge. Raon wins the first lawsuit.

Sang-hyeon confesses to Tae Soo-mi that he was behind the Raon hacking but is told to keep everything a secret. During In-cheol's absence, Kim Chan-hong became Raon's CEO. In conversation with his ex-wife, Ji-su, a recuperating Myung-seok considers quitting Hanbada. Sang-hyeon feels guilty for In-cheol's hospitalization and meets Young-woo, revealing that Chan-hong requested that he do the hacking to convince In-cheol to spend more money on security. He gives her a flash drive containing his confession video. He also reveals that they are siblings. Han Seon-yeong wants to use the confession video against Soo-mi, but Young-woo proposes another solution, as the hacked data remains encrypted.

In court, the judge does not accept the video as evidence. Raon's board fires Chan-hong. Sang-hyeon is unable to testify in person, as Soo-mi is sending him to the United States. Mending her relationship with Jun-ho, Young-woo meets Soo-mi at the National Assembly right before Soo-mi's hearing, giving an emotional plea requesting her to do the right thing for her son as a mother. After Sang-hyeon testifies, Soo-mi apologizes to the media for her son's misdeeds and steps down from her candidacy for minister of justice.