1. Story Statement
Nora must prevail against the firearms industry at trial when no one is playing fair.
2. Antagonist or Antagonistic Force (goals, background, ways they react to the world around them)
Slick Vegas lawyer Lance Bettingcourt is always the smartest guy in the room – just ask him. He and Nora have battled it out on cases before, but now he is opposing counsel on the biggest case of Nora’s career. As lead counsel for the local gun store defendant, he uses every tactic he has to pressure the Plaintiffs to drop their case. Bettingcourt wants to win, and will leap over any ethical line to do so without any hesitation, despite his upstanding reputation.
Bettingcourt is representative of the antagonistic force of the firearms industry in general, the parties Nora sues following a mass shooting, and the laws that protect them. Those laws present an enormous challenge to her lawsuit against a gun dealer, which Lance will attempt to use to his full advantage.
Shadowy forces emerge as Nora refuses to drop her case, playing dirty and endangering her son. Bettingcourt and his client, gun store owner Francis Dodge, tell the Court that they have no direct knowledge of threats against the Plaintiffs, but don’t deny it as vehemently when speaking to Nora alone.
Bettingcourt is sure he knows how the world works, and of his place in it, and won’t suffer anyone who doesn’t agree with him.
3. Breakout title
Bulletproof
Gun Fight
Immunity
4. Comparables
Anatomy of a Scandal by Sarah Vaughan
Defending Jacob by William Landay (in tone, style and pace) X a fictional Erin Brockovich
5. Hook Line (core wound and conflict)
Disillusioned Vegas lawyer Nora Jacobs finds herself pitted against the powerful firearms industry in a lawsuit she never intended to take to trial. Long ago, she lost any interest in the law, practicing only to put money in her pocket. But when the family of a mass shooting victim appears in her office, she takes their case, unable to turn them away. The case is a bigger beast than she imagined and when it goes to trial, she finds herself not only fighting for her clients, but also for her sanity and the safety of her family.
6. Additional Conflicts
Nora is a divorced single mom to a four-year-old boy, Kyle. Kyle’s father, Jordan, is very present in Kyle’s life, and he and Nora remain friendly. They often spend time together as a family of three and Nora and Jordan spend the night together on occasion. There is no label to their relationship, but it’s what works for them. But, they don’t talk about the status of their relationship or lack thereof, as they are both unsure of what they want and what the other thinks of their situation. They both prefer to maintain the status quo. Also in play is Nora’s law clerk, Brian, with whom she also has an undefined relationship. They have worked together closely for years, and their relationship becomes physical when they spend more time together working on the firearms case. Unwilling to choose between Jordan and Brian, and unsure if there is a choice to be made, Nora continues to see them both, without any endgame in mind or consideration of the complications she could run into down the road.
Nora is a loving, if hapless, mother to her young son. Lawyering and mothering often pull her in different directions and she feels the strain. She wants to be more present as a mother, but also sometimes resents the responsibility she now has compared with the freedom of her childless life.
7. Setting
Bulletproof is set in Las Vegas. It begins in a resort on the Las Vegas Strip and takes place in the Summerlin suburb and the courtrooms in the Regional Justice Center in downtown in Las Vegas.
In general, Las Vegas has an endless supply of settings and moods. Las Vegas is a study in extremes. The euphoria of a night out is followed by a wretched hangover and regret. People gamble money they don’t have, while trying to catch up in a race they will never win. Hope and despair mingle every night at the craps tables. The vacationers’ paradise on the strip is powered by people not making a living wage. Visitors die in hotel rooms every day.
The lush greenness and self-satisfied upper middle class existence of kids baseball games, private tutors and Christmases with too many presents on one side of town contrasts with the barren dust and sand covered lots where people with substance abuse problems and uncared for children suffer in Vegas’ heat, unalleviated by trees, grass or shade.
Vegas is about freedom, opportunity and living in the moment. People rise and fall and rise again, and more second chances are given in Vegas than anywhere else.
