My Desert Lawyers

The Street Lawyer

Description

Michael was in a hurry. He was scrambling up the ladder at Drake & Sweeney, a giant D.C. law firm with eight hundred lawyers. The money was good and getting better; a partnership was three years away. He was a rising star with no time to waste, no time to stop, no time to toss a few coins into the cups of panhandlers. No time for a conscience.



But a violent encounter with a homeless man stopped him cold. Michael survived; his assailant did not. Who was this man? Michael did some digging, and learned that he was a mentally ill veteran who'd been in and out of shelters for many years. Then Michael dug a little deeper, and found a dirty secret, and the secret involved Drake & Sweeney.



The fast track derailed; the ladder collapsed. Michael bolted the firm and took a top-secret file with him. He landed in the streets, an advocate for the homeless, a street lawyer.



And a thief.


From the Hardcover edition.

John Grisham is back with his latest courtroom conundrum, The Street Lawyer. This time the lord of legal thrillers dives deep into the world of the homeless, particularly their barely audible legal voice in a world dominated by large, all-powerful law firms. Our hero, Michael Brock, is on the fast track to partnership at D.C.'s premier law firm, Sweeny & Drake. His dream of someday raking in a million-plus a year is finally within reach. Nothing can stop him, not even 90-hour workweeks and a failing marriage--until he meets DeVon Hardy, a.k.a. "Mister," a Vietnam vet with a grudge against his landlord--and a few lawyers to fry. Hardy, with no clear motive, takes Brock and eight of his colleagues hostage in a boardroom, demanding their tax returns and interrogating them with a conviction that would have put perpetrators of the Spanish Inquisition to shame. Hardy, a man of few words and a lot of ammunition, mumbles cryptically, "Who are the evictors?" as he points a .44 automatic within inches of Brock's face. The violent outcome of the hostage situation triggers an abrupt soul-searching for the young lawyer, and Hardy's mysterious question continues to haunt him. Brock learns that Hardy had been in and out of homeless shelters most of his life, but he had recently begun paying rent in a rundown building; that means he has legal recourse when a big money-making outfit such as Sweeny & Drake boots him with no warning. When Brock realizes that his profession caters to the morally challenged, he sets out on an aimless search through the dicier side of D.C., ending up at the 14th Street Legal Clinic. The clinic's director, a gargantuan man named Mordecai Green, woos Brock to the clinic with a $90,000 cut in pay and the chance to redeem his soul. Brock takes it--and some of the story's credibility along with it; it's hard to believe that a Yale graduate who sacrificed everything--including his marriage--to succeed in the legal profession would quickly jump at the opportunity for low-paying, charitable work. However, Brock's search for corruption in the swanky upper echelons of Sweeny & Drake (via the toughest streets of D.C.) is filled with colorful characters and realistic, gritty descriptions. In the The Street Lawyer, Grisham once again defends the voiceless and powerless. In the words of Mordecai Green, "That's justice, Michael. That's what street law is all about. Dignity."

Reviews

Rating: 5 / 5
Date: 2010-08-11
Summary: "Grisham"

I don't think there is a John Grisham book that I didn't like! He is one of my favorite writers.

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Rating: 2 / 5
Date: 2010-07-28
Summary: "Grisham is a master craftsman, VERY BAD STORY THOUGH"

Grisham might be the best genre writer of our time. I say this because when you read his words, its pretty obvious that he has a genius for putting together simple sentences to form a sense of urgency. This urgency is what makes suspense tick, and page by page, the suspense is there... even if obscured by just a horrible story.

The street lawyer is one of the most condescending bits of tripe that I have ever read. Here is a billionaire (or close to it) writer (Grisham), writing about homelessness and the hypocrisy of the wealthy.

This is a story about 'redemption'... A Dickens style fable where the protagonist 'Michael' finds truth & purpose while helping squatters fight the system. Mostly, whats worse, is the superior liberal stance (and I, myself am a liberal) Grisham takes here. You get a dose of preaching from characters you want to slap around and have no sympathy, followed by a bit of soul searching by the protagonist and then its all repeated again and again.

This is a bad story. Id recommend staying away from it. Their are some good Grisham moments here. As I said, he is a master of his craft and you can find yourself floating down a few dozen pages of suspense that rock like a good book should. But that preaching... I live next to SF. The uber-liberal stance on homelessness just does not work.

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Rating: 1 / 5
Date: 2010-07-03
Summary: "boo"

this is one of his worst. along with his non fiction book innocent man this was nothing more than a political statement. a time to kill is by far his best

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Rating: 5 / 5
Date: 2010-06-22
Summary: "street lawyer"

this book kept your interst from the start to the end. hard to put it down and the ending out of this world.

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Rating: 5 / 5
Date: 2010-03-23
Summary: "A Wake-up Call About the Poor and the Homeless"

Attorney Michael Brock is a thirty-two-year-old Yale graduate, who will soon become a partner at the high powered Washington, D.C. law firm of Drake & Sweeney, where he will earn close to a million dollars a year and bonuses. He works eighty hours a week minimum and is climbing the ladder of success.

Then one day a homeless man walks into the firm and takes some of its attorneys hostage. He not only has a gun, but a bundle of what looks like dynamite taped to his body and he laments that people like them walk right by him on the street, ignoring the poor and the homeless, and he demands they call him, Mister. Then he demands their tax records. He wants to check their charitable contributions.

Mister meets a violent end, but the experience transforms Michael and his attempts to find out what motivated the man lead him to a world of soup kitchens, squatters, homeless shelters and a legal clinic where there are no million-dollar salaries.

His guide to the world of the homeless is Mordecai Green, a firebrand in his early 50s who represents the poorest of the poor. He educates Michael and the reader about the elimination of low-cost housing and the trend in America to turn the homeless into criminals. It's not long before Green offers Michael a job and he accepts, becoming, you guessed it, "The Street Lawyer."

Michael starts up in Green's clinic working on hundreds of cases, while preparing a lawsuit against his old firm. This is hard work and things start to get complicated when Michael realizes that a Drake & Sweeney file he has shows that his old firm had been guilty of wrongful eviction. This adds a very nice twist to the tale.

Though this book is sort of a wake-up call to America about the plight of the homeless, it's first and foremost a John Grisham legal thriller, and as such you can expect a corporate conspiracy and a cover-up with our hero's life and livelihood on the line. You can also expect expertly drawn characters who you can easily identify with and non-stop Grisham suspense. I think everyone should read this book.