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The story takes place in the city of Woburn, Massachusetts. A local leather production factory is considered by the people living in the city to be contaminating the area’s water supply with toxins. They suppose that was the cause for a number of deaths of children in the city. A smart and very successful lawyer Jan Schlichtmann, (starring John Travolta), and his small firm which consists of just a few lawyers decide to take up the case and set justice.
At first they consider this case an unprofitable one and reject it. But Jan manages to find the key environmental issue regarding groundwater contamination. Also there are several defendants who are eager to give their part of money for this case. Jan gets to know that the children have died from leukemia, the cause for which could initially be toxins – the products of utilization of the leather production plant in the neighborhood. On the one hand this plant caused the deaths of innocent children, on the other – the plant is a major employer in the city. There are two giant, powerful and very rich corporations Jan decides to go against. At first he decides to do this in order to earn millions and a proper name for his firm, but while speaking to the people suffering from these companies, the case gradually becomes the principle point in his career and life on the whole.
The case is incredibly difficult, because nobody knows for sure what exactly causes leukemia (the most probable version is trichloroethylene though), so it promises to be almost impossible to find necessary testimonies. And not all the workers of the company living in the close neighborhood with their families were eager to give information as for utilization of the trichloroethylene (TCE), as they didn’t want to lose their jobs. Besides, examination of the environmental condition of the needed area needed a lot of money, so Jan and his small firm had to run huge expenses to organize it.
So, Jan represents families which want the contaminated area to be cleaned up with a civil action lawsuit to the Grand Jury. The members of the families insist that they do it not for money but for apology and justice.
The leather production company offers at last 25 million dollars to Jan to never come back to the topic again, but he demands 1, 5 million dollars for each family who suffered from toxins and 25 millions dollars for environmental research fond meant to trace the consequences of contamination of the ground waters with TCE, acetone and toluene and their effect on people’s health, including such illnesses as leukemia. Anyhow the case transforms into the one that can easily cause a complete catastrophe for Jan and his firm. The lawyers of the leather production corporation are very powerful and can not be easily intimidated; he experiences one fail in the court after the other. The debts of the firm and its members grow tremendously.
When the case is dismissed in favor of one of the companies, Jan gives up and agrees for a settlement with the other. His own colleagues no longer wish to work with him, they lost their homes and savings, and therefore they break up the firm. Nevertheless Jan continues his struggle for justice and finally finds a witness who knows all the system of utilization of the chemicals. Although he succeeds in finding all the necessary testimonies for winning the case, his life still remains in shambles. He has no partners, strength and will to end the case. Nevertheless he maintains that if he had a possibility to start everything from the very beginning he would act the same way. Jan results in bankruptcy.
Later, the Environmental Protection Agency starts a civil action suit against the leather production corporation again. This time the company is indicted by the grand Jury for making false statements to the EPA regarding its use of the chemicals TCE, acetone and toluene. The company is forced to pay 6, 9 million dollars to clean up the groundwater – the most expensive project in its kind in the history of New England; the leather production plant is finally closed. Although Jan needs some time to be through with his debts, he starts working with environmental law cases.