Staff Picks – The Litigators

The Litigators by John Grisham

I can’t help myself. I like reading legal thrillers. The Litigators is the latest book by John Grisham, one of my favorite authors. It doesn’t hurt that Grisham has mentioned Beckley in a few of his books, but not this one.

This one starts out with David Zinc, a young lawyer at a prestigious law firm, having a panic attack trying to go to work one morning. Working in a windowless office doing endless research for big corporations, is not why he became a lawyer.

He makes a break for it, but can’t bring himself to go home and face his wife. Instead he goes to a bar, and gets beyond drunk. He ends up in a boutique law firm on the wrong side of town. The partners are a couple of down on their luck ambulance chasers. He decides to stay because anything is better than what he had just left. He wanted to get into the real world with real clients and this is about as real as it gets.

The partners take him on because they think his presence will give them some respectability, but they tell him he has to generate his own revenue. He finds ambulance chasing very distasteful, but does manage to get a few cases on his own. Mostly he lives off his savings.

One of the partners has dreams of having one big case that will make him rich. He goes after a large pharmaceutical company for a “bad drug” and lets David be second chair. He thinks since David worked at the prestigious law firm, it makes the case seem more legitimate. There are many twists and turns in the story and it has an unexpected ending. It is a good read and I recommend it for those who like legal stories.

Recommended by: Kay from Main

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