Original: 왜 오수재인가
A painful but exciting story of Oh Soo-jae, a cold lawyer who has become empty while pursuing only success, and Gong Chan, a law school student who is not afraid of anything to protect her.
Oh Soo Jae is a unique character at TK Law Firm and the wider legal professional community. She didn’t go to college, but she’s known for being a cut throat, star attorney. When her name comes up as one of the candidates to become TK’s next managing partner, everyone doubts that it will actually happen.
Soo Jae is forced to take time off from working at TK Law Firm after rumours circulate that she drove Park So Young to suicide. She suddenly has to start working at Seojung University Law School as a professor. Meanwhile, Se Ryeon, one of Soo Jae’s students, puts up a poster on campus, detailing the misconduct of one of the Law School professors. She comes asking Soo Jae for help.
Soo Jae continues to face backlash over the suicide of Park So Young. With people attacking her left and right, only a handful of her students stand by her side. Soo Jae decides to give this case as a sort of assignment to her students. Meanwhile, Choi Ju Wan, the new managing partner of TK Law Firm and Chairman Choi Tae Guk’s son, gets himself into trouble.
Director Baek tells Soo Jae to take on Park Ji Young’s case as the Legal Center’s first official case. Since Soo Jae and her students have already been working on this, they continue to search for evidence to prove that Ji Young is innocent. Meanwhile, Soo Jae senses danger lurking on her way home and calls Chan to let him know what is going on.
Sensing that she’s in imminent danger, Soo Jae calls Gong Chan for help. Gong Chan arrives at her place and runs into a mysterious guy wearing a mask and gets into a scuffle. Later on, while Soo Jae tries to deal with the incident alone, she gets annoyed by Gong Chan’s constant care for her, but at the same time, she can’t deny that she feels somewhat protected.
Soo Jae offers an undeniable deal to trade what she has on Choi Tae Guk for seventy million dollars. Knowing that she has the upper hand, Tae Guk accepts the deal that heavily favours Soo Jae. While taking care of a little something for Tae Guk as a part of the deal, Soo Jae becomes overwhelmed by memories of her lost child. As it happened before, Soo Jae, in agony, looks for Gong Chan. That’s when she gets a call from someone she least expected.
Soo Jae shakes in fear when she realizes that she almost got killed in a car explosion involving Hong Seok Pal’s death. However, there is no one to whom she is willing to show her weak sides, except for maybe one person. Not long after, Soo Jae meets up with Tae Guk who suggests that she attend an event, but she rejects the offer without knowing what this will bring about in the near future.
Soo Jae gets arrested and locked up in a detention center after being accused of instigating Hong Seok Pal to murder Park So Young. Soo Jae lowers her stance on proving her innocence and carefully plans her way out of the situation. Meanwhile, Chan and Yoon Sang focus on getting their hands on anything that can prove that the evidence was fabricated. On the day of the warrant review, Soo Jae finds herself sitting in a courtroom alone until someone shows up.
After the release, Soo Jae ends up living in Chan’s house with his roommates until her building’s renovation is finished. She feels at home with Chan by her side and finally finds a place where she can sleep after all these years. Meanwhile, knowing that Soo Jae could be a stumbling block, Choi Tae Guk realizes that something must be done and keeps his eyes on Soo Jae.
A serious incident breaks out at Yeongpyeong District Construction Site, and everyone involved in Hansu Bio’s sell-off is summoned at once. While dealing with the collapse, a human skeleton is discovered, and Chan intuitively realizes that it has something to do with his sister’s death. Meanwhile, Soo Jae looks for Chan at his place, and she stumbles upon a little secret Chan has been hiding.
After finding out what Gong Chan has been hiding from Soo Jae all along, Soo Jae feels devastated and keeps a distance from him. She recollects her memories of how helpless she was when she defended Kim Dong Gu ten years ago. Meanwhile, Sung Bum pays a visit to the funeral of the victims of the construction site fall. He suddenly gets attacked by one of the bereaved family members and ends up being hospitalized.
Yoon Sang organizes a meeting in the hopes of letting Chan know the unrevealed details of his case. However, the meeting doesn’t pan out as he anticipated. Chan demands an explanation from Yoon Sang about his actions. Yoon Sang shares his reasons while having Soo Jae listen to them over the phone. Chan doesn’t know Soo Jae is listening, but his care for Soo Jae is too touching for Soo Jae to handle.
Director Baek holds a mock trial where students play the roles of judges, prosecutors, defendants, and witnesses before he resigns from university. Tae Guk is invited to the event and plays the role of the presiding judge without knowing that the case for the mock trial is very similar to the one of Na Jung’s death 10 years ago. Meanwhile, the skeleton in Yeongpyeong District gets identified. Will it be confirmed to belong to Na Jung?
Soo Jae knew about Tae Guk’s way of handling things, but when she finds out what he did to her and her daughter, she breaks down. Soon after, she gathers herself together and prepares herself for what’s to come. Meanwhile, Soo Jae cannot get rid of the feeling of intimacy between Jae Yi and herself. On her way to meet Chan to share her new secret, she gets a call saying that Jae Yi has gone missing.
After seeing her daughter die right before her eyes, Soo Jae falls into deep grief. She disappears with a letter left for Chan. Meanwhile, Tae Guk plans to disbar Soo Jae permanently. He tells the bar association to hold a disciplinary hearing and come up with every illegal action done by Soo Jae. With Jin Ki’s confirmation hearing right around the corner, he is accused of taking bribes in the past. Tae Guk promises that he will attend the hearing as a witness and defend Jin Ki.
At the disciplinary hearing, all parties claim their innocence, but no one seems to admit to their wrongdoings except for Soo Jae. On top of admitting to her wrongdoings, Soo Jae makes sure the world knows about Choi Tae Guk’s atrociousness and takes one step at a time to bring him to justice. In the battle of right against might, Soo Jae goes all in on what’s right.
