Randy Barnett is talking about legal novels and touting law professor Kim Roosevelt's novel In the Shadow of the Law. I look forward to reading it. (Kim is currently guest blogging at PrawfsBlawg.
Prof. Barnett mentions that John Grisham novels are almost unreadable because of the writing style, and while I generally agree, I do have to mention one book. I had not read a Grisham novel since A Time to Kill was released, so I was not excited when the director of the Ignatius Studies program here suggested that I read The Street Lawyer. I bought the book in an airport and actually found myself drawn into the plot of an antitrust associate at a large law firm who has an epiphany that his calling is elsewhere.
Yes, I skimmed through and read it quickly. (Isn't it funny how good books make you slow down and actually read, so saying something is a "quick read" isn't the highest compliment?) But, I thought that one of the basic questions that the protagonist struggles with was a universal question that everyone with high-earning capacity has to answer for ourselves: If you believe that it is your calling to "feed the poor," then is it better to stay at a large firm making six figures and someday seven figures and give away a susbstantial portion or to leave the high-paying job and do legal work for the homeless for a basic living wage?
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d8345157d569e200d8344af07653ef
Links to weblogs that reference Favorite Legal Novels:
1. Posted by Caroline Bradley on June 25, 2005 @ 11:12 | Permalink
Or to teach corporate law to people who may give away a substantial portion of their earnings?
2. Posted by Plainsman on June 26, 2005 @ 18:46 | Permalink
My take on Grisham has long been that he had one perfectly innocuous, readable novel in him -- his first one, A Time to Kill. It's about a thirtysomething liberal guy who's a solo practitioner in a Mississippi small town: in short, Grisham himself before he struck it rich. Write what you know.
The setting and dialogue in ATTK aren't as clunky as the later books where Grisham tried to write about things he didn't know well -- DC politics, mafia bosses, East Coast law schools, big-city Northern law firms.
| Sun | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | |||
| 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 |
| 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 |
| 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 |
| 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 |
