The Trials of Cate McCall
2013 film by Karen Moncrieff
The Trials of Cate McCall is a 2013 American drama film directed and written by Karen Moncrieff and stars Kate Beckinsale, Nick Nolte and Clancy Brown.
Plot
Cate McCall is a lawyer, an alcoholic in recovery and on probation, and estranged from her family. In order to regain custody of her young daughter and be reinstated to the bar, she accepts the pro bono appeal of a woman, Lacey, who has been convicted of murder. Aided by her assistant, Cate pulls out all stops to prove Lacey's innocence, as well as work on her own alcohol and work addictions. Cate becomes obsessed with the case, neglecting arranged time with her daughter while she successfully gets Lacey's conviction overturned. Cate begins drinking again after learning Lacey is guilty, which makes her mistreat her kid even more. In the middle of a trial, Cate goes back to her previous position at a prestigious law firm and purposely ruins the case for her own client. Cate then takes multiple illegal actions to put Lacey back in prison. Cate gives evidence to the prosecutor who can convict Lacey, then conspires with the prosecutor; the two of them agree to keep it a secret so that she won't be disbarred, which would deny him the ability to use the evidence that he should not have. Cate does not recuse herself from Lacey's trial – though she does blackmail the original judge, who previously ruled in Lacey's favour, to recuse himself.
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Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Feb 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3523082. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2013.
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This entry incorporates text from “The Trials of Cate McCall” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.