Saul Goodman

WARNING SPOILERS!

James Morgan "Jimmy" McGill, better known by his professional alias and business moniker Saul Goodman, is a lawyer working in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He is the younger brother of Chuck McGill and the estranged husband of Kim Wexler, the latter of whom inspired Jimmy to pursue a legal career and inspired various aspects of his Saul Goodman persona. Dressing in flashy suits, Jimmy started out as a public defense and elder law attorney, working out of a cheap strip mall office in Albuquerque, New Mexico before working as an attorney at Hamlin, Hamlin & McGill and Davis & Main, later establishing his own firm at Saul Goodman & Associates. After practicing law under the name Saul Goodman, Jimmy became a "criminal lawyer" for clients with criminal backgrounds, slowly losing his morality along the way. Through his connection with Mike Ehrmantraut, Jimmy began to maintain extensive connections within the criminal underworld, serving as a go-between connecting drug distributors, evidence removers, impersonators, and other criminals-for-hire. Despite his flamboyant appearance and mannerisms, Jimmy is a highly competent lawyer who is able to solve problems and find loopholes in order to protect his clients.

Background information

Jimmy McGill was born on November 12, 1960, to Ruth and Charles McGill Sr in Cicero, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. He had one older brother, Charles "Chuck" McGill Jr. Jimmy later worked for his father at his small corner store and watched as he was repeatedly taken advantage of by scam artists. After one of the scam artists offered young Jimmy a life lesson about wolve sand sheep, he began stealing money from his father's cash register. Over the following years, Jimmy embezzled nearly $14,000 from the store, which eventually led to its closure. Charles Sr died six months later, which Chuck secretly blamed on Jimmy's actions. Jimmy blamed his father due to his over-excessive generosity. In his teenage years, Jimmy began to play his own scams to get quick money. In one of his most famous scams, he would find the most slippery patches of ice every winter, stage a fall, and earn himself a fair amount of money, which earned him the nickname "Slippin' Jimmy". In another one of his scams, Jimmy (using the alias "Saul Goodman") worked with his close friend and fellow con artist Marco Pasternak to trick others into trading cash for fake Rolex watches ("Hero"). Jimmy also produced fake IDs for his classmates in high school. In the early 1990s, Jimmy divorced his first wife when she cheated on him with a guy named Chet, who happened to owe Jimmy money. In 1992, a drunken Jimmy encountered Chet at a local Dairy Queen and decided to perform a "Chicago Sunroof"(defecating through the sunroof of Chet's car) as revenge. Unbeknownst to him, however, Chet's children were in the back seat. Even worse, Chet had ties to the local prosecutors. Jimmy was quickly brought in by the police on charges of property damage, assault, and a possible sex offense. He was booked and put in pre-trial detention. Chuck, who had become a successful lawyer in Albuquerque, New Mexico, visited Jimmy in jail at the request of their mother. A desperate Jimmy begged Chuck to use his knowledge of the law to make the charges disappear. Chuck reluctantly agreed on the condition that Jimmy moves to Albuquerque and takes up a legitimate job in the mailroom of his law firm, Hamlin, Hamlin & McGill (HHM), along with a stern warning not to make a fool out of Chuck in return. Although hesitant to leave Cicero, Jimmy agreed and was subsequently released due to Chuck's intervention. After wishing farewell to Marco, Jimmy moved to Albuquerque. Jimmy and Chuck returned to Cicero seven years later, when their mother was in failing health. When she was hospitalized, the brothers sat for three days at her bedside. Eventually, Jimmy decided to step out for some hoagies, only to be devastated when, upon returning to the hospital, Chuck told him their mother had died. When Jimmy asked if she had said anything before passing, Chuck lied and said she hadn't; in reality, she had briefly awoken and called for Jimmy. Jimmy would never know the truth.

In Albuquerque, Jimmy befriended many people, including Chuck's wife Rebecca and Chuck's law partner, Howard Hamlin. Most importantly, he met and began a semi-romantic relationship with Kim Wexler, a co-worker in the HHM mailroom who was attending law school. In 1993, inspired by Kim's passing of the bar exam, Jimmy decided to pursue his own law degree. To do so, he took a correspondence course at the University of American Samoa. After two failed attempts, Jimmy passed the bar exam himself in 2001. While Jimmy's friends were delighted by his achievement, Chuck was secretly shocked and disgusted at the thought of his ne'er-do-well brother practicing law. Refusing to view Jimmy as a real lawyer and frustrated that he earned a law degree so easily while Chuck himself had to work hard his entire life to build his own career, Chuck pressured Howard to block his brother from working at HHM. When Howard was forced to deliver the news, Jimmy mistakenly blamed him for the decision. Shortly thereafter, Jimmy quit HHM to become a solo practitioner.