A lot weighs on the President's mind as shame rains on him after his Supreme Court nominee was found running a sex ring on government property. The Senate said they wouldn't approve anyone else he nominated. An aide walked in with a letter with a child's writing on the front.
Although he was robbed of his last true act as President, reading words from his hometown cheers him up. The words from this little boy impressed him and he decides to drive the two hours south to Chester, Virginia to pay the boy a visit.

Lucille is a divorced mom of four children. She barely makes ends meet working as a property manager and cleaning her church. She dreams of being a lawyer and studies when she gets a few minutes of free time.

In her office, she finds out that the landlord is going to evict her friend, Cathy, to house government property. She can't stand the injustice. She quits and moves out herself. She comes home destitute. The apartment is silent, which is a rare occurrence, so she decides to sneak out the candy bar she hid for a special occasion. Suddenly her eldest, a fourteen-year-old girl, comes home from school and, before Lucille can talk to her, takes a bite of her mom's candy bar. Her ten-year-old son then comes in tracking mud everywhere and releasing the squirrel he captured which finds the candy bar and takes a bite too. Cathy comes in with Lucille's two youngest. The five-year-old runs around crazy and finds the candy bar as well. Cathy heaves the two-year-old into Lucille's arms saying that she's had a long day and has to go home before Lucille can tell her the bad news. The two-year-old drools on what's left of the candy bar.

Finally, Lucille reaches her tipping point. She yells that she has to use the bathroom, runs in and slams the door. She crawls into the bathtub where she slowly eats what remains of her candy. She thinks about how hard it is to live this life, and the days that she feels like she starts with a full candy bar she has to fight and yell to save some for herself. She starts to cry. Then she prays. A blanket of peace envelopes her. "Oh, the kids, how scared they probably are", she thinks. She knows she can't blow up like that at them again, they need her. Before she opens the door, she exhales and prays, "God please give me patience because if you give me strength I'm gonna hurt somebody." Her kids are standing afraid in front of her when the door opens. The five-year-old comes running to her and asks if she's going to leave them too. She stoops down to hug him and says "absolutely not. I'm not stupid." She beckons everyone else to come in and they have a family hug. She tells them that she's sorry for yelling at them, but she needed some alone time and that it was rude for everyone to eat her candy bar without asking. They all nod their head in understanding and apologize. She tells them that she needs them to be flexible because their lives are going to change soon.

She's helping her 10-year-old son with his government homework, writing to different members of the government, when she hears a knock at the door. She's surprised to see her boss and landlord. She thinks he's there to kick her out that evening but he tells her he rejects her resignation and that he wants her to keep working, that he thinks she's a hard worker. She's compelled by his plea until she screams when she sees men with guns outside the window then they hear another knock at the door.

They're shocked to see the President and his entourage. After welcoming them in, the President quickly discovers that Lucille is the one with the political and law knowledge and character. It dawns on him that he could nominate her for the Supreme Court! He knows she won't be confirmed, she's not a lawyer and never been a judge, but the Senate would look like they're against working women when they grill her and ultimately reject her. He wouldn't be accused of playing political games because he can say she has a clean record and she's smart. She initially rejects the idea because she didn't want to be a pawn and obviously hasn't been a judge or even a lawyer, but when he tells her the party would take care of her and her family's needs while she was being confirmed and she could advocate for her causes, she agrees.

"Well Mr. President, this is over my head, but I'm not stupid and I know a good opportunity when I see one," she says.

The president calls his head of communications back in Washington to tell him he has another candidate. The deputy asks if this is a good idea. The president says, "During my constitutional law class the professor took a poll of people's opinion of the recent supreme court nominee; only a quarter of the class had a real opinion and the rest were indifferent. Some of those who were indifferent ended up on the ABA's 'highly qualified' list. So, if a mother of four with no higher education can intelligently tell me what she thinks of a nominee, then she's better than three-fourths o the lawyers out there." The aid asked if she had any skeletons in the closet and the president responds with "she's avoided Washington, she's the least dangerous lady."

The media goes crazy with the story and the political elite are caught off-guard, but they regroup and segregate themselves into those who support her and those who "respectfully disagree" (one pundit says "to quote Patrick Swayze 'she doesn't even know the merengue'"). She's scared of all the publicity that she's received and how it might affect her kids. Her teenage daughter is eating it up, her eldest boy is curious about the whole process, her third oldest is scared of everything, and her youngest is oblivious and joyful.

Preparing for the hearings, Lucille spent a majority of her waking hours behind a book or in front of a lawyer from the party. She consumed as much information about the history of the court, the judicial system and the law as possible. To her amazement she retained most of what she heard and saw, as if some magical glue adhered it to her brain. During meals, people from the party would talk to her about strategy. They told her that if the vote fell along party lines she would not be confirmed, but only by a slim margin. She didn't have to convince them all, just two of the opposition senators to change their mind. They advised her not to try and convince the head of the committee, Jedadiah Pendelton.

"There is no more mercy in him than milk in a male mule," said one of the aids.
They said that the opposition's strategy would be to pressure her to withdraw. They would make her feel unmatched for the job or that the cost was too much. Despite the government lesson she received, her son's grade in social studies started to fall. Before she walked into the chamber for the hearing, someone told her that her second youngest son left school with the flu, but someone from the party was looking after him. She didn't know what to think about this. Someone hands her a candy bar to eat to give her energy right before walking into the chamber.

The committee asked her name and for opening comments. When she finishes they thank her for her words, they concede that she passed the eloquence test. The opposition tries her competence by asking her highly technical legal questions. They first start off with asking if she has any legal experience.

She says, "Well I took the LSATs once. My ex-husband said that if I thought I was so reasonable then I should take it."

She makes a few missteps as she answers the other questions but answers nimbly enough to win in the court of public opinion. Senators from her party help by asking her softball questions and try to put her in a favorable light, but Lucille can tell that she lost points in the minds of the senators she's trying to change.

To break the tie, they move to test her control. They told her that considering the unprecedented nature of her nomination and her lack of professional experience, to determine her fitness for the court they would ask her questions about her personal life. She swallows a little bit. No one told her that they would humiliate her to pressure her to withdraw. They ask why she dropped out of high school (to have her daughter), why she never finished college (to follow her ex-husband's music career), why, when her children are hungry, did she quit her job (she was asked to do something immoral). She feels herself shaking as the sins and mistakes of her past are dug up and put on display in front of the country and the world. She's about to start crying when suddenly her son who was sick with the flu comes running through the room and jumps into her lap. The room erupts with murmurs, and as the senators figure out what to do she consuls her son. When he's fallen asleep in her lap she addresses the committee.

"Senators, you have asked me everything about my professional competence and for hours have paraded my personal life in front of millions. What you all did not admit is how my story is your story. Mr. Drayton, your vote to cut funding from education forced my high school to stop handing out free condoms. Mrs. Sewall your vote against tuition aid made college too expensive for me. And Mr. Brearley, your most recent bill incentivized my apartment to evict hardworking people from their homes. Now I take responsibility for my choices and I will live with the consequences, but my options are a product of your decisions. Lastly, as a committee you all have failed to ask me about my greatest credential. I have been a mom for 14 years and a mother of four for three years and I have heard every type of argument under the sun without the luxury of a formal education or an army of clerks. I can think of no greater experience to prepare me to come to Washington. I'm not stupid and I know how to decide who gets what from the cookie jar."

The room was stunned and after a number of seconds of silence the moderator asked sheepishly if there were any closing questions. The head of the committee shook his head and turned off his mike. The next day, by one vote, Lucille was confirmed as a Supreme court justice.

Before Lucille takes her oath, the chief justice tells her that he's sorry she won't be a lawyer, but she can sit on a bench and judge them all. She begins to assemble her team. She asks Cathy to be a clerk and assistant (she knows how Lucille works and thinks), she asks one of the president's aides to become a clerk (he knows the political climate and helped her become confirmed), and a bona fide lawyer (he understands the legal process).

It's late summer and the Court's session is about to begin. Her team has to catch up with the rest of the justices to nominate cases. She knows her team can't read every word of the eight thousand cases that were nominated so she asks her team what they should do. The president's aide and the lawyer propose running the cases through a computer program with words that highlight what are important to her. Lucille asks Cathy what those words should be, and she recommends justice, faith, first amendment, and others. They find one that fits all their criteria: the law that Lucille walked out on has come to the Court for their decision.

They think it's going to be an open and shut case for her vote, but as they dive deeper into it they see that it's more complicated and her values are conflicting. When she sits down at the bench for the first time, she finds an old Bible that belonged to Oliver Wendell Holmes. Lucille feels more at peace.

After hearing the arguments, it's a split court. In the chamber where the justices cast their vote, the chief justice states his opinion and they go down the line by seniority stating theirs. Lucille is at the end and when her turn arrives when she professes that she's changed her mind and thinks the law should remain the same. Next the chief justice calls the vote, the law stands and they ask her to write the majority opinion. In the opinion, she lays out a solution that satisfies both parties. After feeling confident about her first case she buys a candy bar for each of her children and has a quiet night at home.