Jan Schlichtmann, a lawyer with a desire to achieve financial and material success without losing his belief in the justice system, agrees to take on two powerful corporations (Beatrice Foods and W.R. Grace) when members of eight families in the Boston industrial suburb of Woburn are stricken with leukemia due to toxic poisoning in their tap water. Instead of being a quick-win case, it becomes a financial black hole into which Schlictmann pours $2.5 million as he fights for years against the bottomless coffers of the corporate world. Though he eventually negotiates an $8,000,000 settlement from W.R. Grace, he falls into a personal state of financial ruin in the process.