This article contains major character or plot details.
There are jacks of all trades — and then there’s Izzy Letts.
The Lincoln Lawyer’s dancer turned driver turned paralegal has expertly navigated the thorny world of competitive dance, investigated high-profile murder cases, and chauffeured Mickey Haller (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo) down some pretty dicey streets in Los Angeles.
Along the way, Izzy has faced down ghosts from her past and formed tight-knit relationships with Mickey’s staff. Oh yeah, and — despite her initial hesitation — she has a steamy new romance on the horizon.
Lace up your dance shoes and grab a strong cup of coffee: It’s time to dive deep into our favorite multitalented associate’s files.
Vital stats
Name: Izzy Letts
Played by: Jazz Raycole
Jobs: Legal assistant and dance teacher
Martial status: Single
First appearance: Season 1, Episode 1, “He Rides Again” (16:16)
Key relationships
Significant others: Ray (ex-girlfriend), Grace (girlfriend)
Confidants: Mickey Haller, Lorna Crane
Season 1
- Izzy first enters Mickey’s life as a client: He’s assigned to defend her after she grabbed a necklace off a stranger’s neck.
- Through some elegant legal maneuvering, Mickey gets Izzy off the hook. (Basically, he figures out that the necklace was worth far less than the victims alleged.)
- As payment, Mickey asks Izzy to become his chauffeur, escorting him through the streets of Los Angeles as he tackles cases from the backseat. “I think better on the road,” he tells Izzy.
- Mickey and Izzy learn they’ve both struggled with addiction. Izzy — a former professional dancer — reveals that she began abusing opium after an injury.
- The pair develop an easy rapport as they cruise through LA, but they don’t know the car has been bugged.
- That’s right, Judge Mary Holder (LisaGay Hamilton), who has assigned Mickey a treasure trove of cases, rigged his most high-profile one. Now she’s eavesdropping on Mickey to make sure he doesn’t find out.
- Mickey being Mickey, he does discover what the crooked judge is up to. So Holder decides to use Izzy as bait to kill him.
- The judge was listening in on those private conversations, so she knows about Izzy’s struggles with addiction. Holder uses that to convince Mickey that Izzy has relapsed and needs his help.
- The lawyer thinks he’s rushing to Izzy’s side, but instead he’s ambushed by a hit man who tries to kill him.
- The LAPD arrives on the scene, and Holder’s hit man falls off a cliff and dies.
Season 2
- The phones in Mickey’s office are ringing off the hook. He exonerated tech billionaire Trevor Elliott (Christopher Gorham) in Season 1, and now people are frantically hitting him up for his legal services.
- This means Lorna (Becki Newton), Mickey’s legal assistant, is wildly overworked, so Izzy gets tapped to help in the office while also remaining Mickey’s driver.
- Meanwhile, Izzy is back with her ex-girlfriend Ray (Shelby Lee Parks), and the two want to open a dance studio together.
- Paying for a space is expensive, though, and Ray has a nefarious plan to raise her half of the funds.
- Mickey is representing his girlfriend, Lisa (Lana Parrilla), in a murder trial — yes, that’s just as messy as it sounds — and Ray sees an opportunity. She makes a deal with podcaster Henry Dahl (Matt Angel) to steal the contract for Lisa’s life rights from Mickey’s car.
- Izzy is furious when she discovers what Ray’s done. She breaks up with her and tries to rent the dance studio on her own.
- There’s one major problem: the landlord wants to hike up the rent. Lorna, suspecting discrimination, goes undercover and is offered a much lower price. The women confront him, threaten a lawsuit, and secure the space.
- Their timing is perfect: Izzy uses her brand-new studio to host an intimate wedding celebration for Lorna and Cisco (Angus Sampson).
- And there’s more good news! Izzy is officially retiring as Mickey’s driver. She’s way too busy with her new business to keep shuttling him around town, but she’s staying on part-time to help at the law office.
- While answering phones, Izzy fields a call from Julian La Cosse (Devon Graye). He’s the prime suspect in the murder of Glory Days (Fiona Rene), a sex worker who once helped Mickey win a court case. There’s much more to come about that.
Season 3
- OK, what’s the deal with this Julian guy? We find out that he was involved in the escort service that Glory Days worked for, and the pair got into a heated argument on the day she was killed.
- Julian swears he had nothing to do with Glory Days’s death, and Haller and Associates set out to prove his innocence.
- As the team follows leads, Izzy helps discover a suspicious link between LAPD officer Neil Bishop (Holt McCallany) and DEA agent James de Marco (Michael Irby), who seem to be involved in some shady schemes.
- Cisco and Izzy try to prove their theory by installing surveillance equipment to spy on Bishop and de Marco, whom they observe planting cocaine on a victim.
- As it happens, Bishop and de Marco have been dirty for more than a decade, when de Marco first offered Bishop money to drop a case against a drug cartel.
- De Marco blackmailed Glory Days into assisting with his crooked business, and when he realized she might take the stand as a witness, he and Bishop set her house on fire.
- Julian’s name is cleared, and Haller and Associates celebrate yet another legal victory!
- Let’s not get too excited, though: As the season ends, Mickey discovers the body of his client Sam Scales (Christopher Thornton) in the trunk of his car. Now Izzy, Lorna, and Cisco must tackle their boss’s grisly murder charge.
Season 4
- While Mickey awaits trial for murder, Izzy and Lorna try to hold down the office, which is losing money.
- Izzy, meanwhile, is taking classes to become a paralegal and meets an intriguing classmate named Grace (Gigi Zumbado), who invites her to hang out — maybe on a date? Izzy isn’t sure.
- OK, it was definitely a date. Grace and Izzy watch the sunrise and share a kiss. Izzy warns Grace that she’s way too preoccupied with saving Mickey to be in any kind of committed relationship. Grace understands, and the two will keep it casual for now.
- Cisco and Mickey visit to Sam’s apartment, where they discover a Post-it note with “Pat’s Retrofitting” written on it.
- Izzy assists Cisco with finding clients for “Pat’s Retrofitting,” and only one pops up — a biofuel company called BioGreen.
- Izzy discovers a Los Angeles Times article about BioGreen, which suggests it might be a scam.
- Posing as a graduate student, Izzy meets with the reporter, who explains that he received a cease-and-desist letter from the federal government after his piece was published.
- With Grace’s help, Izzy discovers that the co-owner of BioGreen, Jeanine Ferrigno (Emmanuelle Chriqui), knows Alex Gazarian (Michael A. Goorjian), Mickey’s prime suspect in the murder of Sam Scales.
- Cisco tails Jeanine and Alex. We discover that Alex did kill Sam, because Sam had been skimming money from BioGreen.
- Also, BioGreen is a totally fraudulent company that the FBI has been quietly investigating (hence that cease-and-desist).
- With all these secrets coming to light, Mickey is — at long last! — freed. Now the countdown for the next season begins in 3 … 2 … 1 …
