The office of the public defender is not known as a training ground for bright young litigators. Clay Carter has been there too long and， like most of his colleagues， dreams of a better job in a real firm. When he reluctantly takes the case of a young man charged with a random street killing， he assumes it is just another of the many senseless murders that hit D.C. every week.As he digs into the background of his client， Clay stumbles on a conspiracy too horrible to believe. He suddenly finds himself in the middle of a complex case against one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world， looking at the kind of enormous settlement that would totally change his life—that would make him， almost overnight， the legal profession’s newest king of torts...From the Hardcover edition.

The dangers of smoking rapidly escalate when Mark glimpses a guy trying to commit suicide by carbon monoxide in his car nearby and tries to stop him. The guy is Jerome, a lawyer who tells Mark that his Mafia client has murdered Senator Boyd Boyette and buried him in the concrete under his garage in New Orleans. Then Jerome puts a bullet in his own head. Little Ricky flips out, and so does Barry the Blade Muldanno, who doesn t want blustery U.S. attorney Reverend Roy Foltrigg to find the corpse and bust him. Caught in a ruthless game between the Mob and the amoral authorities, Mark s family has no defense in the world except Reggie Love, a 50ish divorcwho has just turned her life around by becoming a lawyer. Does she have what it takes to help Mark beat the system? The life-or-death chase is on!Mark has seen a lot of movies, and he sees life in cinematic terms. So does Grisham. Even if this novel had never been filmed, it would still be a really good, fast-paced movie. Its literary limitation is also its filmlike virtue: The Client is a rush.

It's summer in Memphis. The sweat is sticking to Rudy Baylor's shirt and creditors are nipping at his heels. Once he had aspirations of breezing through law school and punching his ticket to the good life. Now he doesn't have a job or a prayer...except for one: an insurance dispute that leaves a family devastated and opens the door for a lawsuit, if Rudy can find a way to file it. By the time Rudy gets to court, a heavyweight corporate defense team is there to meet him. And suddenly he's in over his head, plunged into a nightmare of lies and legal maneuverings. A case that started small is exploding into a thunderous million-dollar war of nerves, skill and outright violence--a fight that could cost one young lawyer his life, or turn him into the biggest rainmaker in the land....

In the corridors of Chicago's top law firm:
Twenty -six-year-old Adam Hall stands on the brink of a brilliant legal career. Now he is risking it all for a death-row killer and an impossible case.
Maximum Security Unit, Mississippi State Prison:
Sam Cayhall is a former Klansman and unrepentant racist now facing the death penalty for a fatal bombing in 1967. He has run out of chances -- except for one: the young, liberal Chicago lawyer who just happens to be his grandson.
While the executioners prepare the gas chamber, while the protesters gather and the TV cameras wait, Adam has only days, hours, minutes to save his client. For between the two men is a chasm of shame, family lies, and secrets -- including the one secret that could save Sam Cayhall's life... or cost Adam his.

In 1970, Willie Traynor came to Clanton, Mississippi, in a Triumph Spitfire and a fog of vague ambitions. Within a year, the twenty-three-year-old found himself the owner of Ford County’s only newspaper, famous for its well-crafted obituaries. While the rest of America was in the grips of turmoil, Clanton lived on the edge of another age—until the brutal murder of a young mother rocked the town and thrust Willie into the center of a storm. Daring to report the true horrors of the crime, Willie made as many friends as enemies in Clanton, and over the next decade he would sometimes wonder how he had gotten there in the first place. But he could never escape the crime that had shattered his innocence or the criminal whose evil had left an indelible stain. Because as the ghosts of the South’s past gather around Willie, as tension swirls around Clanton, men and women who served on a jury nine years ago are starting to die one by one—as a killer exacts the ultimate revenge. . . .

在线阅读本书
Book Description
In this searing courtroom drama, best-selling author John Grisham probes the savage depths of racial violence... as he delivers a compelling tale of uncertain justice in a small southern town...
Clanton, Mississippi. The life of a ten-year-old girl is shattered by two drunken and remorseless young man. The mostly white town reacts with shock and horror at the inhuman crime. Until her black father acquires an assault rifle -- and takes justice into his own outraged hands.
For ten days, as burning crosses and the crack of sniper fire spread through the streets of Clanton, the nation sits spellbound as young defense attorney Jake Brigance struggles to save his client's life... and then his own...
Amazon.com
This addictive tale of a young lawyer defending a black Vietnam war hero who kills the white druggies who raped his child in tiny Clanton, Mississippi, is John Grisham's first novel, and his favorite of his first six. He polished it for three years and every detail shines like pebbles at the bottom of a swift, sunlit stream. Grisham is a born legal storyteller and his dialogue is pitch perfect.
The plot turns with jeweled precision. Carl Lee Hailey gets an M-16 from the Chicago hoodlum he'd saved at Da Nang, wastes the rapists on the courthouse steps, then turns to attorney Jake Brigance, who needs a conspicuous win to boost his career. Folks want to give Carl Lee a second medal, but how can they ignore premeditated execution? The town is split, revealing its social structure. Blacks note that a white man shooting a black rapist would be acquitted; the KKK starts a new Clanton chapter; the NAACP, the ambitious local reverend, a snobby, Harvard-infested big local firm, and others try to outmaneuver Jake and his brilliant, disbarred drunk of an ex-law partner. Jake hits the books and the bottle himself. Crosses burn, people die, crowds chant "Free Carl Lee!" and "Fry Carl Lee!" in the antiphony of America's classical tragedy. Because he's lived in Oxford, Mississippi, Grisham gets compared to Faulkner, but he's really got the lean style and fierce folk moralism of John Steinbeck.
--Tim Appelo
Amazon.com Audiobook Review
With a chillingly calm, even delivery, Michael Beck, a regular Grisham reader (The Rainmaker, The Runaway Jury), turns the narrative of this disturbing tale of racism, ignorance, and brutality into an almost visceral experience. "Cobb strung a length of quarter inch ski rope over a limb ... he grabbed her and put the noose around her head." The story is frighteningly believable and expertly crafted around a horrible crime and the tragic consequences that follow. At times, Beck's character voices can be distracting, but his efforts are generally applied to good effect, adding another level of tension to this already suspenseful look at a small Mississippi town's struggle for justice. (Running time: 17 hours, 12 cassettes)
--George Laney
From Library Journal
In this lively novel, Grisham explores the uneasy relationship of blacks and whites in the rural South. His treatment is balanced and humane, if not particularly profound, slighting neither blacks nor whites. Life becomes complicated in the backwoods town of Clanton, Mississippi, when a black worker is brought to trial for the murder of the two whites who raped and tortured his young daughter. Everyone gets involved, from Klan to NAACP. Grisham's pleasure in relating the byzantine complexities of Clanton politics is contagious, and he tells a good story. There are touches of humor in the dialogue; the characters are salty and down-to-earth. An enjoyable book, which displays a respect for Mississippi ways and for the contrary people who live there. Recommended.
- David Keymer, SUNY Coll. of Technology, Utica
Book Dimension
length: (cm)17.9 　　　 　　　　　 　　　　　 width:(cm)10.5

一九七一年美國大聯盟的選秀會上，奧克拉荷馬州第一位被選中的新秀隆恩?威廉森，和奧克蘭運動家隊簽約，就此告別家鄉小鎮埃達，踏上大聯盟職棒的征途。但六年後，他卻因手傷和嗜酒、嗑藥、女色等惡習而落魄返鄉；職棒夢碎，也開始有了精神疾病的症狀。
一九八二年，埃達一名二十一歲的雞尾酒女侍黛博拉．蘇．卡特遭到姦殺，案發五年，埃達警方一直未能破案。不過，他們卻把嫌犯的矛頭指向隆恩．威廉森和他的朋友丹尼斯．佛瑞?；至於原因，始終如謎。兩人在一九八七年終於被捕，以死刑謀殺罪起訴。由於沒有實證，檢方僅以垃圾科學和監所抓耙仔、人犯的證詞為本，兩人被判有罪。丹尼斯．佛瑞?處以終身監禁，隆恩．威廉森被判死刑。十二年後，一九九九年的DNA比對才還兩人清白。隆恩．威廉森卻在出獄五年後去世……
這是約翰．葛里遜寫的第一本非小說，探討美國小鎮的司法嚴重歪曲的實況，是他所有作品裡最為特出的一本。

Before The Firm and  The Pelican Brief made him a superstar,  John Grisham wrote this riveting story of  retribution and justice -- at last it's available in a  Doubleday hardcover edition. In this searing courtroom  drama, best-selling author John Grisham probes the  savage depths of racial violence...as he delivers  a compelling tale of uncertain justice in a small  southern town...Clanton, Mississippi.
The life of a ten-year-old girl is shattered by two  drunken and remorseless young man. The mostly  white town reacts with shock and horror at the inhuman  crime. Until her black father acquires an assault  rifle -- and takes justice into his own outraged  hands.
For ten days, as burning crosses  and the crack of sniper fire spread through the  streets of Clanton, the nation sits spellbound as  young defense attorney Jake Brigance struggles to save  his client's life...and then his own...
From the Hardcover edition.

At the top of his class at Harvard Law, he hadhis choice of the best in America. He made a deadlymistake. When Mitch McDeere signed on withBendini, Lambert & Locke of Memphis, he thought heand his beautiful wife, Abby, were on their way. Thefirm leased him a BMW, paid off his school loans,arranged a mortgage and hired him a decorator.Mitch McDeere should have remembered what his brotherRay -- doing fifteen years in a Tennessee jail --already knew. You never get nothing for nothing.Now the FBI has the lowdown on Mitch's firm andneeds his help. Mitch is caught between a rock and ahard place, with no choice -- if he wants to live.

Book Description
In 1970, one of Mississippi's more colorful weekly newspapers, The Ford County Times, went bankrupt. To the surprise and dismay of many, ownership was assumed by a 23 year-old college dropout, named Willie Traynor. The future of the paper looked grim until a young mother was brutally raped and murdered by a member of the notorious Padgitt family. Willie Traynor reported all the gruesome details, and his newspaper began to prosper.
The murderer, Danny Padgitt, was tried before a packed courthouse in Clanton, Mississippi. The trial came to a startling and dramatic end when the defendant threatened revenge against the jurors if they convicted him. Nevertheless, they found him guilty, and he was sentenced to life in prison.
But in Mississippi in 1970, "life" didn't necessarily mean "life," and nine years later Danny Padgitt managed to get himself paroled. He returned to Ford County, and the retribution began.
Amazon.com
In 1970, small town newspaper The Clanton Times went belly up. With financial assistance from a rich relative, it's purchased by 23-year-old Willie Traynor, formerly the paper's cub reporter. Soon afterward, his new business receives the readership boost it needs thanks to his editorial efforts and coverage of a particularly brutal rape and murder committed by the scion of the town's reclusive bootlegger family. Rather than shy from reporting on the subsequent open-and-shut trial (those who oppose the Padgitt family tend to turn up dead in the area's swampland), Traynor launches a crusade to ensure the unrepentant murderer is brought to justice. When a guilty verdict is returned, the town is relieved to find the Padgitt family's grip on the town did not sway the jury, though Danny Padgitt is sentenced to life in prison rather than death. But, when Padgitt is released after serving less than a decade in jail and members of the jury are murdered, Clanton once again finds itself at the mercy of its renegade family.
When it comes, the dénouement is no surprise; The Last Juror is less a story of suspense than a study of the often idyllic southern town of Clanton, Mississippi (the setting for Grisham's first novel, A Time to Kill). Throughout the nine years between Padgitt's trial and release, Traynor finds acceptance in Clanton, where the people "don't really trust you unless they trusted your grandfather." He grows from a long-haired idealist into another of the town's colorful characters--renovating an old house, sporting a bowtie, beloved on both sides of the color line, and the only person to have attended each of the town's 88 churches at least once. The Last Juror returns Grisham to the courtroom where he made his name, but those who enjoyed the warm sentiment of his recent novels (Bleachers, A Painted House) will still find much to love here.
--Benjamin Reese
From Publishers Weekly
Longhaired 23-year-old college dropout Willie Traynor purchased a bankrupt Mississippi newspaper, The Ford County Times, in the 1970s. With his progressive attitude and his British Spitfire car, he stands out in small town Clanton, where people "don't really trust you unless they trusted your grandfather." As editor and publisher, Willie's eyes are opened to many issues, including corrupt politics, the impact of segregation, the role of religion in a small town and the war in Vietnam. His scoop of a lifetime comes, however, with the brutal rape and murder of a young widow. Danny Padgitt, a member of a secluded family of drug runners and bootleggers notorious for buying the law, receives a life sentence for the crime, but he's released only nine years later. Shortly thereafter, jury members begin to die. Reader Beck has come far since his starring gang leader role in the 1979 film The Warriors. Now, he's Grisham's primary reader and for good reason. His southern accent suits the story well, and his flawless first-person telling is utterly convincing. Particularly fun is the voice he lends Clanton's friend Harry Rex; one can almost hear the ever-present unlit cigar moving from side to side as he speaks.
From Bookmarks Magazine
Is this latest thriller from Grisham up to snuff? Or, at least, to his usual level of, err, proficiency? Maybe yes, maybe no. Grisham revisits his old haunting ground--the Deep South of A Time to Kill--to depict the inner workings of a small, insular Southern town. He creates some good characters: an evil bootlegger family, a sleazy lawyer, an immature editor, and a tender black woman, Callie, whose relationship with Willie forms the best part of the novel. Some critics loved the legal suspense. Others cited slow scenes, sloppy dialogue, a clumsy ending, and an incomplete portrait of the racially segregated Clanton. Padgitt's trial is "painful to watch, more painful to read," notes the Oregonian. But maybe we've come to expect too much from the author of The Runaway Jury --so sit back and enjoy.
From AudioFile
Michael Beck's narration successfully captures the ambiance of life in Mississippi in this story of justice, revenge, and the interweaving of lives in a small town. As told by Willie Traynor, a college dropout who buys the local paper in 1973, the story's central thread is the trial of Danny Padgett for the murder of a single mother and the ways it affects the town for years to come. Beck has Willie's voice and personality from the first sentence and is equally successful in capturing the people Willie comes to care about during the years he spends there. Although some minor characters sound a bit alike, this is a minor quibble in a novel that encompasses so many. At the end, the listener almost feels if he knows the people of Clinton as well as Willie does--and hates to leave them. M.A.M.
Book Dimension :
length: (cm)17.5 　　　 　　　　　 　　　　　 width:(cm)10.7

In the corridors of Chicago's top law firm:
Twenty-six-year-old Adam Hall stands on the brinkof a brilliant legal career. Now he is risking itall for a death-row killer and an impossible case.
Maximum Security Unit, Mississippi StatePrison:
Sam Cayhall is a former Klansmanand unrepentant racist now facing the death penaltyfor a fatal bombing in 1967. He has run out ofchances -- except for one: the young, liberal Chicagolawyer who just happens to be his grandson. Whilethe executioners prepare the gas chamber, whilethe protesters gather and the TVcameras wait, Adam has only days, hours, minutesto save his client. For between the two men is achasm of shame, family lies, and secrets --including the one secret that could save Sam Cayhall'slife...or cost Adam his.
"A dark andthoughtful tale pulsing wit moral uncertainties...Grisham is at his best."-- People .
"Compelling... Powerful... The Chamber will make readers thinklong and hard about the death penalty." -- USA Today .
"His bestyet." -- The Houston Post .
"Mesmerizing... with an authority andoriginality... and with a grasp of literarycomplexity that makes Scott Turow's novels pale bycomparison -- Grisham returns." -- SanFrancisco Chronicle .

Michael was in a hurry. He was scrambling up the ladder at Drake & Sweeney, a giant D.C. law firm with eight hundred lawyers. The money was good and getting better; a partnership was three years away. He was a rising star with no time to waste, no time to stop, no time to toss a few coins into the cups of panhandlers. No time for a conscience.
But a violent encounter with a homeless man stopped him cold. Michael survived; his assailant did not. Who was this man? Michael did some digging, and learned that he was a mentally ill veteran who'd been in and out of shelters for many years. Then Michael dug a little deeper, and found a dirty secret, and the secret involved Drake & Sweeney.
The fast track derailed; the ladder collapsed. Michael bolted the firm and took a top-secret file with him. He landed in the streets, an advocate for the homeless, a street lawyer.
And a thief.
From the Hardcover edition.

在线阅读本书
Book Description
He gave up the money. He gave up the power. Now all he has left is the law.
Michael Brock is billing the hours, making the money, rushing relentlessly to the top of Drake & Sweeney, a giant D.C. law firm. One step away from partnership, Michael has it all. Then, in an instant, it all comes undone.
A homeless man takes nine lawyers hostage in the firm's plush offices. When it is all over, the man's blood is splattered on Michael's face--and suddenly Michael is willing to do the unthinkable. Rediscovering a conscience he lost long ago, Michael is leaving the big time for the streets where his attacker once lived--and where society's powerless need an advocate for justice.
But there's one break Michael can't make: from a secret that has floated up from the depths of Drake & Sweeney, from a confidential file that is now in Michael's hands, and from a conspiracy that has already taken lives. Now Michael's former partners are about to become his bitter enemies. Because to them, Michael Brock is the most dangerous man on the streets....
Amazon.com
Looking for a romantic, hardboiled legal drama with a social conscience? Look no further. This audio version of John Grisham's blockbuster The Street Lawyer is narrated by Michael Beck (The Golden Seal, Xanadu), whose portrayal of the similarly named Michael Brock, with his squeaky-clean voice and crisp annunciation, is in perfect pitch with the corporate attorney's Ivy League image. Beck's believable, engaging performance is compelling, drawing the listener into Brock's charmed life and his decision to quit the firm after being held hostage by a disgruntled homeless man. Moved by a crisis of conscience, Brock seeks out the gravel-throated, streetwise legal aid counselor Mordecai Green. Green shows him the ropes, and Brock soon becomes part of the scenery he used to look down on from his plush 14th-floor office. Meanwhile, our hero is on the lam for stealing an important file that holds the secret to an illegal eviction--one that may lead to a murder charge. Faced with a failing marriage, a client on crack, and the threat of disbarment, Michael has plenty to think about as he and Mordecai negotiate a fair settlement for the victims of an inexcusable crime. (Running time: 360 minutes; 4 cassettes)
From Publishers Weekly
America's most popular author is arguably its most popular crusader as well, tilting his pen against myriad targets, including big law (The Firm, etc.), big tobacco (The Runaway Jury), big insurance (The Rainmaker) and now, in perhaps his sweetest, shortest novel, against anyone, big or little, who treats the homeless as less than human. The expected powerhouse opening involves the hostage-taking?by an armed, homeless man who calls himself Mister?of nine attorneys of a huge law firm headquartered in D.C. Among the nine is narrator Michael Brock, an antitrust lawyer who receives a faceful of blood when a police sniper blows away Mister's head. "I'm alive! I'm alive," Michael cries like Ebenezer Scrooge, but, like Scrooge, this greedy hotshot is ripe for a moral awakening. The next day, Michael visits the shabby offices of Mister's attorney, Mordecai Green, who explains that Mister and others had been illegally evicted from makeshift housing on orders from a real-estate development company represented by Michael's firm. Inspired by Green and shaken by his firm's complicity, Michael volunteers at a homeless shelter. When a family he meets there dies on the street, and turns out to have been among the evictees, Michael quits his job, goes to work for Green and, using as evidence a file he steals from the firm, aims to sue his former employer on behalf of the evictees. In turn, the firm places Michael in its crosshairs, pressuring him to give up the file through legal maneuvers, having him arrested and hints of darker means. The cat-and-mouse between Michael and the firm is vintage Grisham, intricately plotted, but the emphasis in this smoothly told, baldly manipulative tale is less on action and suspense, which are moderate, than on Michael's change of heart and moving exploration of the world of the homeless. Dickens would be well pleased, and so will Grisham's fans. 2.8 million first printing.
From School Library Journal
YA-Michael Brock, a successful young attorney for a large, prestigious law firm in Washington, DC, is taken hostage by a homeless veteran in the dramatic opening chapter of Grisham's newest novel. In an effort to understand the motives of his assailant, who dies as the hostages are freed, the young man volunteers at a soup kitchen and works at a legal-aid society. There he begins to recognize the plight of the homeless. However, serious questions remain as to the role Brock's firm had in evicting Mister and other homeless people during a cold winter. In an effort to delve into this mystery, Brock steals a file, thus cutting himself off from friends and his former way of life. The author's reputation assures the popularity of The Street Lawyer, and it is an excellent choice for teens as the plot is relatively simple and fast moving. However, those readers hoping for as much excitement or suspense as there was in The Firm will be disappointed. Michael's transformation from greedy attorney to a sympathetic social worker is gradual and credible. Other characters are not as well developed. As Grisham includes many statistics and other relevant information on the homeless, this is an good choice for sociology students.
Claudia Moore, W. T. Woodson High School, Fairfax, VA
From AudioFile
A high-powered lawyer leaves a Washington, DC, firm to practice "street law." Unlikely, but Grisham has concocted a believable story that may signal that his latest bestseller has something more to say to his readers than legal maneuvering and intrigue. Michael Beck does an admirable job with the abridged edition, giving an especially appealing voice to homeless advocate Mordecai Green. The story is a great choice for recording as it unfolds in deliberate storytelling style and doesn't have too many characters or scene shifts. THE STREET LAWYER is a departure from Grisham's norm and is highly recommended for great listening. R.F.W.
Book Dimension
length: (cm)17.3 　　　 　　　　　 　　　　　 width:(cm)10.7

In a weedy lot on the outskirts of Memphis, two  boys watch a shiny Lincoln pull up to the  curb...Eleven-year-old Mark Sway and his younger brother  were sharing a forbidden cigarette when a chance  encounter with a suicidal lawyer left Mark knowing  a bloody and explosive secret: the whereabouts of  the most sought-after dead body in America. Now Mark is caught  between a legal system gone mad and a mob killer  desperate to cover up his crime. And his only ally is  a woman named Reggie Love, who has been a lawyer  for all of four years. Prosecutors are  willing to break all the rules to make Mark talk. The  mob will stop at nothing to keep him quiet. And  Reggie will do anything to protect her client --  even take a last, desperate gamble that could win  Mark his freedom... or cost them both their  lives.

John Grisham’s first work of nonfiction, an exploration of small town justice gone terribly awry, is his most extraordinary legal thriller yet.
In the major league draft of 1971, the first player chosen from the State of Oklahoma was Ron Williamson. When he signed with the Oakland A’s, he said goodbye to his hometown of Ada and left to pursue his dreams of big league glory.
Six years later he was back, his dreams broken by a bad arm and bad habits—drinking, drugs, and women. He began to show signs of mental illness. Unable to keep a job, he moved in with his mother and slept twenty hours a day on her sofa.
In 1982, a 21-year-old cocktail waitress in Ada named Debra Sue Carter was raped and murdered, and for five years the police could not solve the crime. For reasons that were never clear, they suspected Ron Williamson and his friend Dennis Fritz. The two were finally arrested in 1987 and charged with capital murder.
With no physical evidence, the prosecution’s case was built on junk science and the testimony of jailhouse snitches and convicts. Dennis Fritz was found guilty and given a life sentence. Ron Williamson was sent to death row.
If you believe that in America you are innocent until proven guilty, this book will shock you. If you believe in the death penalty, this book will disturb you. If you believe the criminal justice system is fair, this book will infuriate you.</p>

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
Until that September of 1952, Luke Chandler had never kept a secret or told a single lie. But in the long, hot summer of his seventh year, two groups of migrant workers—and two very dangerous men—came through the Arkansas Delta to work the Chandler cotton farm. And suddenly mysteries are flooding Luke’s world. A brutal murder leaves the town seething in gossip and suspicion. A beautiful young woman ignites forbidden passions. A fatherless baby is born. And someone has begun furtively painting the bare clapboards of the Chandler farmhouse, slowly, painstakingly, bathing the run-down structure in gleaming white. And as young Luke watches the world around him, he unravels secrets that could shatter lives—and change his family and his town forever.

The Firm is a 1991 legal thriller and the second novel by John Grisham. It was his first widely recognized piece of work, and in 1993, was made into a film starring Tom Cruise. Grisham's first novel, A Time to Kill, was successful but did not bring the author the attention of the general public.
Mitchell Y. McDeere is a law student who graduated third in his class at Harvard Law School. Mitch is married to his college sweetheart, Abby. His brother Ray is serving a prison term, and his other brother, Rusty, died in Vietnam.
Mitch has offers from law firms in New York and Chicago but eventually decides to join Bendini, Lambert and Locke, a small tax law firm based in Memphis. The firm seduces him by offering him a large salary, a lease on a new BMW 3 series, a low interest mortgage on a house, as well as paying off his student loans. Soon after he joins, his new colleagues help him study and pass his bar exam. At the firm, the first priority is for the associate to pass the bar exam.
Two of Mitch's colleagues die in a scuba diving accident in the Cayman Islands the week he starts at the firm. Mitch finds the deaths unsettling, but settles down, works hard towards his dream of becoming a successful employee of the firm. During a memorial service at the firm for the two deceased attorneys, Mitch notices plaques commemorating three other attorneys who died while working at the firm. Suspicious, he hires a private investigator, Eddie Lomax, an ex-cell mate of his brother Ray, to investigate the deaths of the attorneys.
Lomax discovers that all five of the deceased attorneys died under questionable circumstances: two in the diving accident, and the other three in a car accident, a hunting accident and a suicide, respectively. Lomax cautions Mitch to be careful. Soon after delivering his report to Mitch, Lomax is murdered.
Just as he passes his bar exam, Wayne Tarrance, an FBI agent, confronts Mitch. Mitch gradually learns from the FBI that the firm is actually part of the white collar operations of the Morolto crime family of Chicago. For years, the Moroltos have lured new lawyers from poor backgrounds into the firm with promises of wealth and security. By the time a lawyer is aware of the firm's actual operations, he cannot leave. No lawyer has escaped the firm alive, as the recent deaths of his two colleagues show. Mitch learns that his house, office and car are bugged. He and Abby are also routinely followed, making his meetings with the FBI dangerous. Pressure from both the firm and the FBI, who warns him he will regret not cooperating later on if he chooses to ignore them, force Mitch to make a decision quickly.
Desperate to find a way out and stay alive in the process, Mitch makes a deal with the FBI, in which he gets two million dollars and the release of his brother, if he collects enough evidence to indict the firm. Mitch tells Tarrance that he can obtain enough evidence to indict half the firm, but the information obtained through those indictments will prove the existence of an illegal conspiracy—giving the government the ammunition it needs to destroy the firm and the Morolto family. In order to do so, however, Mitch must disclose information about his clients, and thus end his career as a lawyer (though in truth, the attorney-client privilege in most U.S. states, including Tennessee,[1] does not apply to situations where a lawyer knows that a crime is taking place). Working with Lomax's secretary and lover, Tammy, Mitch begins to copy confidential documents and makes plans to deliver them to the FBI as planned.
Meanwhile, the firm becomes suspicious of Mitch, and with the assistance of "Alfred", a mole in the FBI, they discover Mitch's plan. Once Mitch learns of this, he runs from both the FBI and Mafia with his brother who escaped from jail, and his wife. He steals approximately ten million dollars from various bank accounts belonging to the firm.
Mitch manages to escape to the Caribbean with the help of Barry Abanks, a scuba diving business owner whose son died in the incident where the firm killed two lawyers, and George, a bank robber from Australia, while the FBI gets the evidence they need to bust the firm through a variety of documents Mitch and Abby copy from the firm. At the end, Mitch, Abby and Ray are quietly enjoying their newfound wealth in the Caribbean region.