Rating: 
Summary: Books are good
Review: The Street Lawyer
John Grisham
Realistic Fiction
Summary:
This book is about this guy that works in this big DC law firm and one day he gets taken hostage by this homeless guy. The homeless guy gets shot by the police and he gets freed but this experence changes his life. He wants to find out about this guy so he goes to the homeless shelters and looks up stuff about him. When he's at the homeless shelters he meets htis family and the next day the family dies from carbon monoxide poisning because they were sleeping in there car with it running and the snow cloges up the exost so it kills them in there sleep. He finds out that his law firm (...) them over in this deal by kicking them out of the place that they lived and so he decides to sue his law firm that (...)over the homeless family and get money for the homeless people. All this time he stole a file from his law firm to find out stuff about the case and so now read the book to find out the rest.
Personal Comentary:I thought this book was good. The main Charicter ,Michal, changes his ammount of carring for the homeless in the book At the beginning of the book he thought they all smelled, "I didnt see him. I smelt him though-the pungent odor of smoke and cheap wine." pg 9 By the end of the book he started to care about them and wanted to help them. "How about the paper. I'll read about the mayor first i know how you like city politics. pg 302
I liked to see the change in the charicter. That is what i think makes it a good book.
Critics view:
I really enjoyed this book. I like lawyer books. This book might not be for everyone but it was for me. Some reasons you might not like this book is that it was kind of long. If you like law books you shouyld like this book.
Rating: 
Summary: A good book, but not the best book I've read
Review: Never reading one of John Grisham's books before, I didn't know what to expect. I have to say that it had an intersting beginning. Something not suggested by the Title. Because I hadn't expected such a sudden chain of events, my interest in the plot ripened. The first half of the book, went very quickly. With each event taking place, I became more compeled to learn of the outcome. By the end of the book, it started to slow down, and what I wanted was for everything to be resolved. Michael Brock was the main character, and I enjoyed his sympathy towards the homeless, and his clients. He was one of the few rich lawyers, who actually cared enough to help others who had nothing. Persistence was another great quality protrayed by his character. One of the reasons I didn't feel this book was the best was because of the ending. I felt as if it just all the sudden stopped, and that there were things left unfinished, such as what happened to Rudy, and the relationship started with Meagan. This is a book that I would recommend for those who like to read story's with a little suspense, and a little drama. Also, it might help if you knew about lawyers, and their work, because I didn't connect with that part of the book at all.
Rating: 
Summary: All aboard - We're going on a guilt trip
Review: I don't know whether John Grisham gets more preachy with each successive book or whether I've simply become more sensitive to the sermons over the years. At times, The Street Lawyer reads like DNC talking points. Grisham slams the Republican Congress, Newt Gingrich, Mayor Giuliani - he even finds a place for a gratuitous dig at former-President Reagan. However, in the spirit of caveat emptor, I kinda expected this when I bought a Grisham book about a lawyer for the homeless. So, I will do my best to fairly evaluate The Street Lawyer despite some of the political commentary within that often insults the intelligence of the reader. Our hero, Michael Brock, is a successful young anti-trust lawyer at a huge D.C. firm. His life is forever changed when he and his colleagues are taken hostage in their office by a homeless man. The police eventually take out the homeless man and Brock, shaken by the experience and splattered with the man's blood, seeks out information about his captor, both for practical purposes (did the man have AIDS?) and out of curiousity (was it random or did he specifically target Brock's employer?). Through this endeavor, he encounters a dynamic attorney who runs a tiny legal clinic for homeless advocacy and he experiences a crisis of conscience during which he leaves his job and marriage and jeopardizes his license to practice law. Is it plausible that a homeless man, wrongfully evicted from illegal housing, would track down the law firm involved with the eviction? Is it plausible that the young lawyer, on the fast track to being made a partner, would chuck it all instead of just doing some pro bono work on the side? Is it plausible that all the evidence necessary to squeeze his former employer on the wrongful eviction would find its way into Brock's hands, with minimal efforts? Some of it seemed a little too convenient for me, but I guess when you have to tie everything up with a somewhat happy ending in 449 pages (paperback), things just have a way of falling into place. I guess the thing that stuck with me most, when reading The Street Lawyer, was Michael Brock's thought while observing a funeral for a homeless mother and her three children. Brock came into brief contact with this little family on a cold winter night, his first time ever volunteering in a homeless shelter. They subsequently died from carbon monoxide poisoning while sleeping with the heat on in the only shelter they had, a car. (It just happened that they were also victims of the aforementioned wrongful eviction). Brock witnessed the outpouring of emotion from family, friends and community at the funeral and thought, "I couldn't believe it. Where were these people during the last months of Lontae's life? Those little bodies lying up there in boxes had never known so much love." (p.133-4) This was perhaps the most true and logical thought in the entire book - I don't know how it slipped through unchecked. The Street Lawyer is mediocre fiction, at best. It's the weakest Grisham book of the eight that I've read. I wish I enjoyed it more, but I didn't. Even if you agree with Grisham completely, you're not going to get much out of this book - it is simply not as interesting or well-written as his earlier work.
Rating:
Summary: Educational.....
Review: I really enjoyed this book. It was very educational regarding street people and quite entertaining. A real page turner as all of Grisham book usually are. I never really thought about street people until I read this book. It made me look at them through different eyes.
Rating: 
Summary: From the shadows into the light
Review: In The Street Lawyer by John Grisham many phrases or words are used to strengthen the plot and the characters ideas and actions. Like any other thriller novel, there are the two main characters who contradict each other throughout the whole novel. In this case it is our friendly and caring lawyer Michael Brock and his former colleagues from Drake& Sweeny. Based in Washington D.C. during the winter the homeless are freezing and have no place to turn for warmth or comfort. They are out of homes and out of luck dying for a helping hand. The climax of the novel strengthens the plot by adding suspense to each of the characters and their actions. John Grisham uses regionalism (certain aspects/descriptions devoted to that area) to describe the poverty that these poor homeless people must live with every day even in real life. "I smelled him though-the pungent odor of smoke and cheap wine and life on the streets without soap. We were alone as we moved upward, and when I finally glanced over I saw the boots, black and dirty and much too large. A tarred tattered trench coat fell to his knees. Under it, layers of foul clothing bunched around his midsection." I think that one of the major themes that kept running through my mind while I was reading was that even though street bums and lawyers may not look like a million dollars they take their matters in their business as if it were there own lives.
Before I read this novel, I was not concerned with the wellfare of homeless as much as I am now. I had no idea a book could change your mind in such a way as this.
Rating:
Summary: It was a good book
Review: Overall I thought that the book was written very well. Unlike the first editorial I read I thought the book was very well thought out. Once again this book show how smart that John Grisham really is. There was no unequally weighted section of the book. The begining, the middle, and the end all keep you on the edge of your seat. i read this book for a high school class called modern novel. In my opinion this book was one of the bvest books that I have ever read. To the gentleman from Europe don't be so judgemental.
Rating:
Summary: One of his Best!!
Review: I read this book over a weekend and have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed it! I even liked it as much as The Client, which is my favorite Grisham book. It also has a lesson on ethics within it. We live in a very materialistic society and after reading this book, you really think the next time you buy a shirt at Macy's or go out for dinner and drinks with friends. Not everyone can have these luxuries in life and many of us spend more on a smoothie or coffee from Starbucks than some spend on a meal. It would be a perfect book to tie in with The Lifestyle Makeovers you see on Oprah. That wasn't the only part of the book, though. I did have plenty of law related things as all of his books do. If you enjoy his other books, I am sure you will like this one as well. I know I did!!
Rating:
Summary: Street Lawyer Review
Review: John Grisham begins the story The Street Lawyer, with a practicing Anti-trust lawyer, who's name was Michael Brock. He was well on his way to a partnership along with a million dollar salary in what is the nations fifth-largest firm. During the beginning of the story Grisham illustrates that the lawyer's marriage is shaky. He demonstrated this by showing that he and his wife never spent any time together because they were always caught up in their work. Upon the opening chapters Michael Brock is entering his office and he and several members are held hostage by a street bum. Soon after the hostage situation Brock realizes that a fellow firm had evicted him from a building in the city and the man who went by Mister needed somewhere to take it out on.
After starting out the book this way Grisham in some ways "hooked" me from the very beginning. After Michael Brock had done some investigating of his own through another law firm he meets and befriends a man named Mordecai Green. Green becomes Brock's mentor and soon has him volunteering his time at a homeless shelter in the city. After reading this story it made me want to go and volunteer and thats the impression I think that Grisham intended on when wrote this book. The story moves on and becomes very suspenseful where Brock is both an attacker and a defender and most of the evidence of his wrongdoing was wrongfully obtained through his old law firm.
Grisham highlights some sensitivity in several areas of the book. He does this by describing racial and class fears and he stereotypes them without sensationalizing them. The major point that he describes is that he shows how people today have the problem of balancing their outside life along with a very competitive workplace.
Rating:
Summary: Another one from Grisham that is hard to put down!
Review: The Street Lawyer is another example of Grisham's brilliant success. I had previously read one of his other novels The Testament. The Testament was an awesome book and kept me interested until the very last page. Because I thought this novel was so well written, I naturally anticipated that The Street Lawyer would be of lesser quality. Because The Testament was such an enjoyable book, I figured that his later works could not surpass the quality of that one--but I was wrong. The Street Lawyer along with his other pieces are all hard to put down once you pick them up. I guess this is because Grisham's novels all deal with modern events that can easily be related to. He writes about events that happen in our day to day world and reveals some of the most common vices of the human soul. In this novel, he writes of the corruption of a law firm, and how it unjustly puts families out on the street. In our society, this would not be uncommon, and this is why I think his novels are so entertaining and successful.
This story is about a young partner in a law firm named Michael Brock. The large and prestigious firm he is a part of is very corrupt and evicts many homeless people from a large warehouse unfairly. Due to the eviction, a mother and her kids freeze to death in an old car, and a man named Mister seeks revenge on the firm. Mister holds hostage some partners of the firm and does so until he is killed by the SWAT team. Michael Brock is among the few who witnesses his death. Disturbed by his conscience, Brock investigates the eviction more closely and ends up getting kicked out of the firm for stealing some files. Also, he is driven to an inner-city clinic that handles cases for typically "unworthy" clients, and there he meets Mordecai. Mordecai is a black attorney. Once they start to trust each other, they begin to work well together...
Throughout this novel and along with most of his other novels, the suspense was great. Once again, he uses themes and motifs that are easily relatable to the common people of today's society. For example, one theme this novel explores is that of corruption. In our world today, just about everyone has been a part of something corrupt or have experienced corruption in some way. Because of this, many people can connect with his message being sent, and this is partly why he is so successful. Also, this novel touches on aspect of a change of heart. Brock, who at first is so blind to his own corruption, realizes the evil going on and decides to take up for the innocent, even if it means losing his job. Overall: I would recommend this book to everyone. I believe that this book is very entertaining and delivers insightful information about the nature of the human soul. This novel is very realistic, therefore, it reads easily. I would also recommend The Testament, another novel that embraces and does not let go.
Rating:
Summary: Life Changing Experience
Review: John Grisham gives his character, Michael Brock, a choice. Keep up the current pace or change your life and learn to live at the same time. However, he doesn't let Brock ponder a meadow of flowers or a babbling brook, he puts Brock in a hostage situation and helps him make his decision by scaring the... out of him. Of course, THE STREET LAWYER wouldn't be a Grisham book if there wasn't deception and secrecy. That all gets thrown in as well. But, I think, deep down, this book takes a step away from typical Grisham by giving the readers a look at a part of life most ignore -- the homeless. Read for the Grisham factor, but enjoy for the life lesson.
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