text: As the seasons progress, she becomes more obsessed with her own success, and willing to cut legal and moral corners in order to advance her career. She once had a soft spot for Jimmy McNulty, leading to an on-again-off-again affair that was eventually discovered by McNulty's wife and ultimately contributed to the breakup of the McNulty's marriage. Although McNulty was honest enough to give Pearlman no hint of a future together, he would occasionally show up drunk on her doorstep. This ended when Pearlman's relationship with Daniels began.
  Season 1
  Pearlman is the ASA heading the Narcotics cases in Season 1, assisting Lieutenant Cedric Daniels' detail in prosecuting the Barksdale Organization, a violent drug crew whom Detective Jimmy McNulty suspects of beating the Baltimore Homicide Unit out of 10 murders. She appears telling Daniels to "make lemonade" with the lack of quality police investigators he has been given, and appears as the liaison between the detail and judge Daniel Phelan on legal matters. She approves the unit's level of "exhaustion" of conventional means – a requirement to authorize a wiretap – helping them make a case against Avon Barksdale. Throughout the season, she has a sexual relationship with McNulty.
  When Detective Lester Freamon begins piecing together the Barksdale Organization’s money trail, several developers and politicians are implicated, and Pearlman's boss, Steven Demper, becomes interested in the case. As the State's Attorney for Baltimore City, Demper is more interested in his elected position than quality prosecutions and threatens Pearlman's job.
  When Avon Barksdale's nephew D'Angelo is arrested for drug possession, Pearlman and McNulty try to squeeze D'Angelo into a witness protection program. The attempt fails when D'Angelo's mother Brianna Barksdale intervenes, and Avon gets a lighter prison sentence.