Based on a true story, Erin Brockovich (Julia Roberts) is a single mother desperate to find a job to support her three young children. In urgent need of money, she pursues a lawsuit against a driver who caused a car accident she was in. The lawsuit fails, but she convinces her lawyer Ed Masry (Albert Finney) to give her a job - as a legal assistant. She doesn't look like a legal assistant, she doesn't sound like a legal assistant, and she probably isn't really qualified to be a legal assistant, but when she finds a suspicious real estate deal by Pacific Gas and Electric, she decides to investigate. As she convinces the residents and employees to tell her what they know, she discovers the company has been illegally dumping toxic waste, poisoning the local people. But can one woman, stubborn and bold though she may be, stop a multi-billion dollar corporation?