The Litigators Hardcover – Big Book, October 25, 2011

Every now and then you come across a novel where it's obvious, from the first few pages, that the author had an absolute blast telling the story, and when that's the case, the reader is generally in for a treat. This is certainly the case here.David Zinc appeared to have it all. A Harvard Law graduate, senior associate at Chicago mega-firm Rogan Rothberg working in international bond finance, earning US$300,000 a year, with a good shot of making partner (where the real gravy train pulls into the station); he had the house, the car, and a beautiful wife pursuing her Ph.D. in art history. And then one grim Chicago morning, heading to the office for another exhausting day doing work he detested with colleagues he loathed, enriching partners he considered odious (and knowing that, if he eventually joined their ranks, the process of getting there would have made him just the same), he snapped. Suddenly, as the elevator ascended, he realised as clearly as anything he'd ever known in his life, “I cannot do this any more”.And so, he just walked away, found a nearby bar that was open before eight in the morning, and decided to have breakfast. A Bloody Mary would do just fine, thanks, and then another and another. After an all day bender, blowing off a client meeting and infuriating his boss, texting his worried wife that all was well despite the frantic calls to her from the office asking where he was, he hails a taxi not sure where he wants to go, then, spotting an advertisement on the side of a bus, tells the driver to take him to the law offices of Finley & Figg, Attorneys.This firm was somewhat different than the one he'd walked out of earlier that day. Oscar Finley and Wally Figg described their partnership as a “boutique firm”, but their stock in trade was quicky no-fault divorces, wills, drunk driving, and that mainstay of ground floor lawyering, personal accident cases. The firm's modest office was located near a busy intersection which provided an ongoing source of business, and the office was home to a dog named AC (for Ambulance Chaser), whose keen ears could pick up the sound of a siren even before a lawyer could hear it.Staggering into the office, David offers his services as a new associate and, by soused bravado more than Harvard Law credentials, persuades the partners that the kid has potential, whereupon they sign him up. David quickly discovers an entire world of lawyering they don't teach at Harvard: where lawyers carry handguns in their briefcases along with legal pads, and with good reason; where making the rounds of prospective clients involves visiting emergency rooms and funeral homes, and where dissatisfied clients express their frustration in ways that go well beyond drafting a stern memorandum.Soon, the firm stumbles onto what may be a once in a lifetime bonanza: a cholesterol drug called Krayoxx (no relation to Vioxx—none at all) which seems to cause those who take it to drop dead with heart attacks and strokes. This vaults the three-lawyer firm into the high-rolling world of mass tort litigation, with players with their own private jets and golf courses. Finley & Figg ends up at the pointy end of the spear in the litigation, which doesn't precisely go as they had hoped.Here are two of the funniest paragraphs I've read in some time.“While Wally doodled on a legal pad as if he were heavily medicated, Oscar did most of the talking. ‘So, either we get rid of these cases and face financial ruin, or we march into federal court three weeks from Monday with a case that no lawyer in his right mind would try before a jury, a case with no liability, no experts, no decent facts, a client who's crazy half the time and stoned the other half, a client whose dead husband weighed 320 pounds and basically ate himself to death, a veritable platoon of highly paid and very skilled lawyers on the other side with an unlimited budget and experts from the finest hospitals in the country, a judge who strongly favors the other side, a judge who doesn't like us at all because he thinks we're inexperienced and incompetent, and, well, what else? What am I leaving out here, David?’‘We have no cash for litigation expenses,’ David said, but only to complete the checklist.”This story is not just funny, but also a tale of how a lawyer, in diving off the big law rat race into the gnarly world of retail practice rediscovers his soul and that there are actually noble and worthy aspects of the law. The characters are complex and interact in believable ways, and the story unfolds as such matters might well do in the real world. There is quite a bit in common between this novel and  The King of Torts , but while that is a tragedy of hubris and nemesis, this is a tale of redemption.

David Zinc, a brilliant but seriously fed up attorney walks away from a hugely successful law firm. During his near complete breakdown and a 24 hour bender, Zinc quite literally falls into the law office of Finley and Figg. What ensues is a delightful yarn about the trials (no pun intended) and tribulations of a tiny law office of ambulance chasers taking on a corporate giant. This is another winner from Grisham. Loved it.

What a treat to go to court with John Grisham! Winning side or losing, it’s always entertaining and you’re waiting to see what happens next.

This going slowly, IMHO, not because it was poorly told - just the opposite - but because I had trouble figuring out who to root for. Once I got going I was fine with it.Class-action suits on unsafe drugs generate little heroism and a lot of venality, extending to all sides: bigtime plaintiffs’ lawyers, small time lawyers, everyday plaintiffs, all mesmerized by the chance of huge paydays. Some start spending the money before they get it.Grisham gets darkly comic mileage out of the small-time firm he focuses on, two struggling ambulance chasers, Oscar Finley and Wally Figg, and their recent new associate, David Zinc, an Ivy League fast tracker who just bailed from a high-powered, high-pressure law firm.We learn just how those ambulances get chased (their office is near a dangerous intersection, and their office dog barks when he hears sirens) and how they try to make a living by milking a few dollars from the divorces and estates of people with little money.Then Figg hears rumors of problems with a widely used anti-cholesterol drug. Is this the big hit he’s long awaited? Or just another of get-rich-quick scheme bound to fail after he’s wasted the firm’s time and money on it?Their personal lives - Finley’s miserable marriage, Figg’s four divorces and floozy girlfriend, work-avoiding secretary Rochelle’s deadbeat relatives - are entertaining but grim. Zinc’s life is slightly more uplifting. (After the wild daylong bender he goes on when he walks away from his prestigious but horrible job.) He can’t believe what he’s seeing - his new associates all carry guns? - but realizes he learned absolutely nothing about the real practice of law while locked away in his skyscraper cubicle handling foreign securities.Zinc takes a long-shot case for beleaguered immigrants who can’t pay him, something his new employers would never do. He took a big risk leaving his white-shoe job to work for peanuts on Chicago’s meaner streets. The good news is he has more time to spend with his wife. The bad news is that she gets pregnant almost immediately.When Figg’s effort to find drug plaintiffs succeeds - but their lead lawyer suddenly bails out - they face the terrifying prospect of actually having to try the case. And it’s against the high-powered firm Zinc just left.Grisham is strong, as ever, on the legal side: from the high stakes of suing or defending Big Pharma to penny-ante ones like separating two unhappy people from each other and each from some of their money.

What a fun book. I loved each and every character.I an sorry it’s over, but there is alway another Grisham book

This is a quick and very entertaining read.

Having recently purchased The Judge’s List I was so disappointed, for the first time ever, requested and thankfully received a refund on an ebook. It was in my opinion for a digital edition, ridiculously expensive at £11.99, made all the more annoying as it fell far below my expectations. However needing a good read I found another Grisham novel in my Kindle library that I’d forgotten about, obviously purchased some time ago. I’ve just finished rereading The Litigators and can’t believe I had indeed forgotten it, especially as it was thoroughly enjoyable. So despite the earlier disappointment with The Judge’s List, will unreservedly reaffirm my respect for the author’s exceptional talent. This book although maybe not as well recognized is, in my opinion, on a par with some of my favourites, like The Pelican Brief, The Runaway Jury, The Client, The Firm etc., etc. An all star read.

More light-hearted perhaps than other Grisham books, this is a David versus Goliath tale of the little guy versus big business.David Zinc an aspiring young lawyer falls amongst disreputable dreamers in the ambulance chasing quickie-divorce boutique law-practice of Finley & Figg on the bad-side of town; a world way from the Harvard law school and downtown corporate practice that is his natural hunting ground. The hapless modus operandi of the down-at-heel stereotypes of back-street hustlers Oscar Finely and Wally Figg, their office manager Rochelle and the office dog AC will make chuckle, while their starched collared new recruit David Zinc does his best to retain his honesty and integrity and come out on top despite everything they throw at him.So yes it's light-hearted but it's a fun romp from cover to cover and … [SPOILER ALERT] … the good guys win in the end (but you knew they would from page one).

Sometimes I read purely for entertainment, with no intention to be instructed. And for that purpose, few writers are as good as John Grisham.Or at least, so I thought until I read 'The Appeal' a few years ago. It struck me as altogether too ranty. What it was saying may well have been entirely true – life may really be like that – but if I want to read about injustice and corruption in the legal system, well I’ve got newspapers, and if I want to understand the mechanics of wealth behind it, I have Tomas Piketty.It’s precisely when I need a break from the Pikettys that I turn to Grisham. So 'The Appeal put me off for quite some time. Until, in fact, two weeks ago when I happened to be at a friend’s house and glanced at the copy of 'The Litigators' I found on her shelf.I was immediately intrigued, the plot premiss sounded so good: David Zinc, a lawyer on his way to a successful career in a huge and soulless firm in Chicago, decides he can stand it no longer and walks out. A day spent in a bar leads to his wandering, well lubricated, into a seedy law firm in a disreputable part of town, that same evening. The firm he chooses likes to think of itself as “boutique”, but it is in fact just small: two lawyers and a receptionist working out of run-down premises and living by ambulance chasing.Well, perhaps not so much living as subsisting.Immediately, Zinc finds himself sucked into the biggest case his new firm has ever seen, the one that after many disappointments, really could make the partners rich. But this kind of mass class action is way out of their league, and Zinc has to undergo a rapid and intensive education in how to fight, and more frequently, how not to fight this kind of case.Fortunately, it’s not his only case. By chance, he’s led to pick up another, involving a toy that led to the lead-poisoning of the son of Burmese immigrants. They badly need, and have been unable to obtain, legal representation. He’s more than happy to start putting together a law suit on their behalf (while also cultivating, with his wife, a more personal relationship with them).The two suits end in profoundly different ways, and their conclusion provides the basis for a new view of the future for Zinc, his partners in the “boutique” firm, the receptionist and even the firm’s dog.It’s a highly enjoyable read – the kind of thing that takes a couple of days or so – and the ending left me feeling I’d rediscovered the Grisham I used to like. Not quite pure entertainment, because he also provides an insight into the world of the law, which I enjoy almost as much as his compelling plots. But the insight enhances the entertainment value.So – no hesitation on my part in recommending 'The Litigators'. Especially if you’re tired, lying in a bath, or on a long flight. It’s well worth five stars – not because it’s great literature but because it does exactly what a Grisham ought to do.Enjoy.

I wasn't sure if I'd like this I don't know having read and absolutely loved the rainmaker I should have been licking my lips in anticipation but yet I wasn't anyway I decided to crack on and read telling myself remember you loved previous books by him this story was utterly breathtaking the characters are amazing davids dad sounded a liked as family member of mine Rochelle was brilliant wally and oscar great guys not without their own personal troubles put the storyline together and john grisham once again just Lull's you into this magnificent book no qualms easily merited and well deserved 5 star rating from me

I had to give this four stars as in the beginning I thought it was going to be about a pair of Laurel and Hardy partners and an overwhelmed good guy trying to make good but it suddenly morphed into a five star book as the new kid on the block patiently pulled them back into taking things more seriously. Not seriously enough for him not to end up in the hot seat but by then he had shown his and his wife's good morality sufficiently to give lawyers a good reputation again! In the end I was really hoping that it would turn out as it did. With the best intentions people can be wrong and this was a good example of how ethically difficult it is to sort out legal matters when people are good and bad at the same time, especially when they are on the opposite side of the fence to your firm and you have no control. I should have had more faith in John Grisham who is such an excellent author but you never know when people will lose it! Sorry Mr Grisham. I will be able to follow some of these tort cases with a bit more knowledge now and not be so sure I know they are crooks to start with! If you like court case drama, you will like this. Sometimes proving you are good at something you didn't know you could be good at, is just what you need.