Oscar Finley and Wally Figg are the bickering partners of a small law firm in the South Side of Chicago . Oscar 's character hold the firm together despite the childish and unethical behavior of Wally , his junior partner . Their bickering is often mediated by Rochelle , the highly competent African American secretary , who had learned a lot of law in he eight years in the office . Meanwhile David Zinc , a graduate of the Harvard Law School , is completely fed up with the grinding and dehumanizing - though well @-@ paid - life of an Associate in the giant law firm of Rogan Rothberg , where in five years of work he had never seen the inside of a courtroom . He suddenly break away , go on a drinking binge and by chance find himself at the Finley & Figg office . Feeling an elevating sense of freedom and vowing never to go back , Zink willingly relegate himself to working for the two disreputable street lawyers and ambulance chasers .