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Dust off your shades and leather jacket, and hop on the Harley. We’re opening up the case files of The Lincoln Lawyer’s Dennis “Cisco” Wojciechowski.
Employed by Mickey Haller’s firm, the private investigator is a fearless sleuth who isn’t afraid to take dicey roads in the pursuit of justice. He tracks down suspected murderers, uses quick thinking to detangle complex court cases, and nonchalantly takes a beating or two.
That’s not to say Cisco has always used his skills for good. Once upon a time, the private investigator was on the wrong side of the law and — as we discover throughout the series — his past has a tendency to haunt him.
Let’s get caught up on all things Cisco, from his biker-gang days to his relationship with resident legal expert Lorna Crane.
Vital Stats
Name: Dennis Wojciechowski
Nickname: Cisco
Played by: Angus Sampson
Job: Private Investigator
Mode of transportation: Harley-Davidson
Marital status: Married
First appearance: Season 1, Episode 1, “He Rides Again” (25:39)
Key Relationships
Spouse: Lorna Crane
Confidants: Mickey Haller, Izzy Letts, Lorna Crane (duh)
Season 1
- When lawyer Mickey Haller is suddenly handed a high-profile case defending tech billionaire Trevor Elliott (Christopher Gorham) against murder charges, he hires Cisco as his private investigator.
- Cisco is happy to help — but he needs to get one awkward conversation out of the way first. Namely: he’s secretly engaged to Lorna Crane (Becki Newton), Mickey’s second ex-wife.
- Despite Cisco’s concerns about Mickey’s reaction, the lawyer handles the news surprisingly well. “Do you love her?” he asks. “With all my heart,” Cisco replies. “Then, it’s okay with me,” Mickey says.
- Cisco offers key assistance when he discovers that Judge Holder (LisaGay Hamilton), the very person who assigned Mickey to Trevor Elliot’s case, runs a jury-rigging side business.
- That’s right: Judge Holder was working with Elliot to rig his jury — and hired a PI of her own to trail Mickey in case he found out about her shady practices.
- In the midst of all this, Cisco is also helping Mickey in his quest to free Jesus Menendez (Saul Huezo), a wrongly convicted client who ended up in prison when the defense’s only witness, a sex worker named Glory Days (Fiona Rene), disappeared.
- Cisco manages to track down Glory Days and, with help from Lorna, convinces her to testify on behalf of Jesus, thereby securing his freedom.
- Now, remember how Cisco was hiding a secret from Mickey in the first episode? Well, Mickey’s actually been keeping his own secret from the private investigator.
- Turns out, the lawyer has been offering pro bono legal work to Cisco’s old motorcycle gang, the Road Saints. Cisco owes a debt to those guys for parting ways with them, and Mickey has been quietly paying that debt back on behalf of his friend.
- This doesn’t sit right for Cisco, who meets up with Teddy (Chris Browning), the Road Saints leader, and says he wants to pay off the debt himself. “There might be a way,” Teddy tells him, and we get a glimpse of Cisco hitting the open road. Dun-dun-dun!
Season 2
- Big question first: what does Cisco have to do to settle his score with the Road Saints?
- Well, Teddy tasks him with making sure that Road Saints member Peter “Kaz” Kazinski (Douglas Bennett) didn’t sell out their motorcycle gang in exchange for an early prison release.
- Though Cisco promises Teddy that he’ll “stay on” Kaz, it’s a pretty thorny situation: Kaz is a close friend who once saved Cisco himself from going to jail.
- Cisco hides the whole situation from Lorna. He’s acting distant — mostly because he’s so anxious — and she thinks he might be getting cold feet about their wedding.
- Meanwhile, Lorna is keeping her own secrets from Cisco. While she was in law school, she was sexually assaulted by a Professor Wheaton (Brian McGovern), and now she’s forced back into his orbit as she pursues her legal degree once again.
- Lorna confronts Cisco, asking if he’s having second thoughts about the wedding, and instead he reveals his promise to Teddy and his conflicting feelings about double-crossing Kaz.
- Lorna is, understandably, concerned about her fiancé. “I don’t want you involved in this,” she tells him. “I just gotta finish this one thing,” he reassures her.
- Oh, yeah — Lorna also tells Cisco about Professor Wheaton. The private investigator pays him a menacing visit. “I’m a friend of Lorna Crane’s, I know she already spoke to you in detail, so I’m just putting a period on the end of the sentence,” he informs the teacher, who is very clearly shaking in his boots.
- So, was Kaz really working with the feds to get released from prison early? Yup, he certainly was. But Cisco has a new plan to settle his debt with the Road Saints and keep his friend safe.
- Cisco helps the biker gang secure a shipment of guns, skirting the LAPD, and this satisfies Teddy enough to lay off him.
- In turn, Cisco gets a new driver’s license and passport for Kaz. Lorna is still not loving all these shenanigans and offers a warning to Kaz as they send him on his way. “Cisco did what he did because he felt he owed you,” she tells him. “But that’s done now.”
- On to happy things! At long last, Cisco and Lorna tie the knot at a courthouse and Cisco surprises her with a celebratory gathering at Izzy’s (Jazz Raycole) dance studio.
Season 3
- Remember Glory Days? Well, she gets murdered by an unknown killer, and Mickey, Cisco, Izzy, and Lorna are hell-bent on finding the culprit.
- Julian La Cosse (Devon Graye), who was involved in the escort service where Glory Days worked, is a prime suspect because the two got into a heated argument on the day of her death.
- Haller & Associates, who are representing Julian, don’t think he’s the killer, though, and turn their attention to former LAPD officer Neil Bishop (Holt McCallany) and DEA agent James De Marco (Michael Irby), who they believe were in cahoots to murder Glory Days.
- Cisco and Izzy set out to prove their theory right by installing surveillance equipment to spy on Bishop and De Marco, whom they spot planting cocaine on an unsuspecting victim.
- It turns out that the two men have been doing dirty work together for more than a decade, when De Marco first offered Bishop money in exchange for dropping a case against a drug cartel. Bishop, who was going through a messy divorce at the time, accepted the extra cash.
- De Marco blackmailed Glory Days into his shady dealings, and when he realized she might take the stand as a witness, the crooked DEA agent and Bishop set her house on fire.
- Now back to Cisco and Izzy’s surveillance footage: Mickey takes that key evidence to Bishop, who promises he will testify on Julian’s behalf.
- Racked with guilt over murdering Glory Days, Bishop instead kills himself on the stand, pulling out a gun that he smuggled into the courtroom.
- Cisco helps clear Julian’s name by showing the surveillance footage in District Attorney Adam Suarez’s (Philip Anthony-Rodriguez) office.
- Time to celebrate? Um, maybe not so much. At the end of the season, Mickey discovers the body of client — and convicted con artist — Sam Scales (Christopher Thornton) in the trunk of his car. Now, Cisco, Izzy, and Lorna will need to clear Mickey’s name, and fast.
Season 4
- We meet back up with Cisco as he, along with Izzy and Lorna, are frantically trying to figure out who might have framed Mickey for murder.
- Cisco makes it his mission to interview any of Mickey’s former clients who might have beef with him, but struggles to scrounge up leads.
- He does have success catching Mickey’s prosecutors eavesdropping on the incarcerated lawyer’s phone calls, which causes the judge to reduce bail.
- Cisco and Mickey pay a visit to Sam’s apartment, where they discover a Post-it note with the words “Pat’s Retrofitting” written on it. Cisco finds an LLC tied to that name, and the company has only one customer: a biofuel company called BioGreen.
- Jeanine Ferrigno (Emmanuelle Chriqui), one of the co-owners of BioGreen, is MIA, so Cisco lures her into the light by vandalizing her boat. Once she appears on the scene, he can tail her.
- Lorna is deeply concerned about Cisco’s safety after he’s attacked by thugs. Still, he continues to follow Jeanine and her boyfriend, Alex Gazarian (Michael A. Goorjian), who is Mickey’s primary suspect in the killing of Sam Scales.
- Then, suddenly, Alex is murdered. Some of his thugs decided to turn on him. Apparently, Alex did murder Sam — and his decision to frame Mickey caused way too much media attention.
- So, why did Alex kill Sam? Well, Sam was skimming money from BioGreen, which — by the way — was a totally fraudulent company. Alex had been using the LLC to scam the government out of biofuel subsidies. As all these wild reveals come to light, Mickey’s name is, at long last, cleared.
