The Street Lawyer

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Summary: john grisham
Review: John Grisham, Jr. was born in Jonesboro, Arkansas, in 1955. Twelve years later, his father, a cotton farmer, moved with his family to Southaven, Mississippi. Grisham graduated from Southaven High School in 1973.

He attended Northwest Junior College, Senatobia, Mississippi; Delta State University, Cleveland, Mississippi; and finally enrolled in the accounting program at Mississippi State University. He received a B.S. in accounting in 1977.
Grisham then studied tax law at the University of Mississippi, Oxford, Mississippi. He soon discovered that he did not enjoy his chosen specialty.

Once again he changed course and turned his attention to criminal law. In 1981, he earned his law degree and soon after opened a law practice in Southaven. As a criminal lawyer he had opportunity to experience the drama and pathos of the courtroom. He also saw lawyers and judges at their best and worst.

In l983, the voters of Mississippi's Seventh District sent Grisham to Jackson as their State Representative. By his second term he held the vice chairmanship of the Apportionment and Elections Committee as well as memberships on the Insurance, Judiciary A, and Military Affairs Committee. Grisham, however, missed the company of his family and was frustrated by the frequent inactivity of the state legislature. Boredom and his sense of humor were evident when Grisham introduced a resolution-commending singer Herbert Khaury, better known as Tiny Tim.



Rating:
Summary: street lawyer
Review: For those who have learned to love Grisham's formula of the small guy bringing down the giants, this book will not disappoint. As usual, his hero -- in this case young attorney Michael Brock -- uses the law effectively against the big lawyers to achieve justice. Also typically, the research into the subject of the book is thorough. The crime this time, though, is one of omission: we, as a society, are ignoring and criminalizing the homeless. Michael Brock is about to put us on notice that we'd better start noticing their plight and doing something about it.
Brock begins the book as a practicing anti-trust lawyer, on the fast track to partnership and a million-dollar annual salary in the nation's fifth-largest law firm. But he has three problems: 1) his marriage is on the rocks because of his commitment to work; 2) he really doesn't like his job; and 3) he's currently being held hostage at gunpoint with eight other lawyers in his office. The gunman is a street person who smells bad and goes by "Mister". The confluence of these three problems creates an epiphany for Brock. He determines to discover the forces that drove "Mister" to his suicidal mission, and finds that his own law firm had evicted "Mister" and sixteen other citizens from a run-down warehouse in the middle of the winter. He also is given a hint that the eviction was illegal, and then discovers that some particularly sympathetic evictees subsequently died on the streets in midwinter. His personal struggle with guilt leads him into the streets to become an advocate for the homeless citizens of our nation's capital, and to take on the very powerful firm that recently owned him.

Along the way to righting this social (and legal?) injustice, Michael Brock meets an array of colorful individuals who provide refreshing relief from the uniform greyness of the corporate lawyer types in the book. Noteworthy among these is Mordecai Green, a heavy, loud, six-foot five-inch black street lawyer. Mordecai becomes Michael's mentor and partner as they take on the arrogance and indifference of the power class by suing his former firm.

We hear many stories and statistics of the homeless in this book, which are both touching and frightening. However, some readers may be offended by Grisham's overtly political characterization of the problem. He implies that we are all symbolized by the law firm in the book, and that we are all guilty of making difficult lives worse through indifference and governmental action. Although he's not so naive as to think we could eradicate homelessness, he advocates pretty strongly for a more liberal approach to the problem. After reading the book, the chances are good that you'll either find yourself rushing to the nearest soup kitchen to volunteer, or that you'll resent being guilt-tripped by a rich and famous entertainer cum self-appointed social critic.

But in addition to the sermonizing, the story moves on quickly to a creative and suspenseful resolution of the legal issues involved in the specific case, where Brock is both attacker and defender because much of his evidence of wrongdoing was illegally obtained from his old company. As usual, Grisham ultimately grounds his stories in detailed inside knowledge of law firms and legal machinations; and his basic David and Goliath trope, while hardly original, keeps the reader in suspense as it moves to an exciting and satisfying close. The writing also shows real sensitivity in several areas: for instance, Grisham describes racial and class fears and stereotypes honestly, without either sensationalizing or denying them. He also speaks to the real conflict many people face today of trying to maintain a balance between their personal values and the demands of an intensely competitive workplace. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Grisham manages to maintain a positive, optimistic tone about the possibility of making progress against homelessness instead of being overwhelmed by it. Even if many of the homeless characters are never going to have a "normal" middle-class life, they can at least have a place out of the snow in which to sleep, a hot meal every day, and some help with their ongoing problems. It's actually a very warm book, in spite of the social problem and the lawsuit. The book is good as a topical tract on homelessness; even better as a typical wild-but-plausible Grisham adventure.



Rating:
Summary: street lawyer
Review: he main character in this book is Michael Brock, a lawyer working for Drake & Sweeney. One day a homeless man comes into the firm and holds Michael and other lawyers hostage. Michael and the lawyers manage to get out of the situation but the homeless man gets killed. Michael finds out later that the homeless man had been evicted from a wherehouse where he was paying rent and Drake & Sweeney was responsible for the eviction. Michael asked a lawyer, at his firm, if he could see the file about the eviction but the lawyer refused. Michael started helping Mordecai Green, a lawyer for the homeless, and soon Michael left Drake & Sweeny and became a laywer for the homeless, a street laywer. But just before he officially left his firm, he stole the eviction file that he wanted to see.
As Micheal copied the file, he began to find out more about the eviction and realized it was illegal and his ex-firm, Drake & Sweeney, were responsible for wrongful deaths of some homeless people, who had died after being evicted. When the firm found out about the missing file, Michael was wanted for Grand Larceny and they were pressing criminal charges. Micheal filed a suit against his ex-firm, with the help, of Mordecai Green, and they were representing the evictees. The partners of Drake & Sweeney, knowing that they were wrong, met with Mordecai Green to settle on an agreement without a jury. They were offering Mordecai and Michael $770,000 and two-year suspension for Michael for stealing the file. Mordecai made an offer of $5 million and a one-year suspension for Michael. If Drake & Sweeney agreed everything would be over without the public hearing about it but if they disagreed, Mordecai would bring in a jury and was confident of winning and humiliating Drake & Sweeney.


Rating:
Summary: street lawyer
Review: Paper-thin characters populate Grisham's legal story about a big-shot Washington DC lawyer who finds a conscience and becomes an advocate for the city's homeless. The plot is a predictable formulaic story of, yawn, personal redemption and reexamining one's prejudices. The author seems to wear his own preconceptions a little too close to the surface when he repeatedly reveals his own latent racism and fear of the poor. The book is a page-turner in a pop novel sort of way, but if you think you've figured out the ending about halfway through, well, you have. No need to read further.


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Summary: Tyler Comans
Review: Street Lawyer is an excellent book that has a beginning that really grasps your interest and holds that interest all the way through the novel. Any ways its a legal story about a big-shot lawyer from Washington DC that involves love, lust, betrayal, murder, mystery, deceit, suspense, romance and sex galore. This is a fast read just like all of John Grisham's novel, which makes them great novels.

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Summary: Story With A Message
Review: This book was a nice break from the money-hungry characters that are commonplace in Grishyam's work. I especially appreciated the call for more lawyers to do pro bono work. This book serves as a good reminder that lawyers have a duty to do more than just make money - they are ministers of justice. Maybe if more attorneys realized that, then they wouldn't have such a bad name.