Los Angeles Branch
The Los Angeles branch of Wolfram & Hart is founded in 1791 over holy ground de-consecrated through a ritual employing the blood of serial murderer Matthias Pavayne, who is able to survive as a spirit in the building for over 200 years. The branch is notable because it operates in the same city as Angel, who becomes the focus of many W&H projects. Several attorneys whose duties focus on Angel—Lindsey McDonald, Lee Mercer, Lilah Morgan, Linwood Murrow—all share the same initials.
In 2003, the Los Angeles branch of Wolfram & Hart is destroyed by The Beast after it launched a brutal assault on their offices and then slaughtered almost everyone else in the city who worked for the company. The building is quickly rebuilt (and somehow managed to replace the staff extremely quickly), and Angel is offered stewardship of the branch by their now-deceased employee Lilah Morgan, ostensibly as a reward for preventing world peace. In reality, the Senior Partners hope to turn Angel to their side, and keep him from recognizing the firm's apocalypse already in progress. Angel accepts the offer on one condition: in exchange, Wolfram & Hart agrees to alter his son Connor's memories and place him with a loving family. The remaining members of Angel Investigations also join Wolfram & Hart, assuming control of various departments.
Angel struggles with the moral ambiguities of his position as branch manager. While he is able to make some changes to the business, such as firing the more evil employees and instituting a zero tolerance policy on killing humans, he must keep the business profitable in order to maintain control of the branch. As a result Angel must keep his often immoral clientele happy through creative solutions to their problems that best fit his understanding of doing good. After running the branch for months, Angel and the others disrupt the Senior Partners' plans by killing all of the members of the Circle of the Black Thorn, the Partners' major representatives on Earth, effectively destroying their influence and stalling the plans of the Partners. Next, during a battle between Angel and Liaison to the Senior Partners Marcus Hamilton, the Los Angeles branch collapses.
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