John Grisham's The Street Lawyer: A review

John Grisham is a New York Times bestseller Author in the category of Legal Thriller who started his career as a Criminal Lawyer. His first book ‘A time to kill' became a New York Times bestseller and soon became an international bestseller. His second book, ‘The Firm’, reached #1 on the New York Times Bestseller list and stayed there for weeks. It was later directed into a movie starring Tom Cruise as Mitchell McDerre, the main character. Grisham is tilting his pen towards some myriad targets that include big insurance (The Rainmaker), big law firms (The Firm) and even big tobacco (The Runaway Jury).

From the long list of Grisham’s bestsellers, we’ve chosen The Street Lawyer to review.

The very opening page grips the reader. Two pages into the novel, a carzed homeless man who calls himself Mister enters the precious marble hallways of the big Washington firm Drake and Sweeney, where Michael Brock- our hero- is an up and coming lawyer. Mister starts firing a gun and takes nine lawyers as hostages and threatens to blow them all away with what looks like homemade explosives strapped around his waist. He hectors them about their big, fat, fancy salaries and points out in compliant that they do nothing for the poor. He questions them repeatedly about some eviction. The crisis ends soon enough with Mister being shot in the head by the police force/SWAT officers who were deployed everywhere in the building and around. Even though he came out alive and unharmed, except for Mister’s blood on his face, Michael is unable to go on with his life. As a matter of fact, Grisham has us convinced that the whole incidence with Mister has induced a sudden change of heart in Michael and has made him want to abandon the fast track corporate life and go into public interest law.

The very next day Michael visits the shabby offices of Mister’s attorney, Mordecai Green, who explains that Mister and some others had been illegally evicted from a makeshift housing on the orders of a real estate development company which is represented by Michael’s firm, Drake and Sweeney. Michael is inspired by Green and is completely shaken by the complicity of his firm and decides to volunteer at a homeless shelter- of course wondering what would happen to his precious, shiny new Lexus while it’s parked on the shady roads outside. When a family that he meets there dies on the streets in a snowstorm and turns out to be one of those who were illegally evicted, Michael quits his job at the firm, goes to work for Green and steals a secret file from Drake and Sweeney (dealing with the family’s illegal eviction from a building that is sold) which he uses as evidence against the firm itself and sues his former employer, Drake and Sweeney, on behalf of the evictees. And like so many Grisham characters before him, he is on the run from his foes. To return this, the firm places Michael in its crosshairs and pressures him to give up the file through various legal maneuvers, having him arrested and hinting rather darker means than that.

The cat and mouse between Michael and the firm is a vintage Grisham, finely plotted although the emphasis in this smoothly told manipulative tale is less on action and suspense- which are moderately present- and is more on the emotional level, Michael’s change of heart and the exploration of the world that the homeless live in. Grisham has never added any real emotional depth to any of his characters and The Street Lawyer is certainly a story that is character driven than ever before. The better parts of this novel concern with Michael’s midlife crisis and his evolution from being a selfish, money grubbing yuppie to a selfless advocate for poor. Grisham transforms Michael Brock from a wealthy advocate living the American Dream and managing Antitrust law at a big law firm in Washington to a penniless and divorced advocate for the homeless and this change is fast paced.

Now, Michael is a man who thinks that his new dedication to the poor and homeless has made him a saint- which is a bit much as we think- but he still has concerns about his shiny new Lexus and is afraid that it might get stolen. This is a man who starts sleeping in a sleeping bag on the floor so that he could better identify with his clients and their lives, which for sure catches our heart!

But the much-vaunted and amazing storytelling skills of Grisham are not in evidence with this novel of his. Michaels tends to speak in clichés at some point like when he explains to a friend that he has “found a calling” or when he talks to his brother and says “I’ve lost my love for money. It’s the curse of the devil.” Within a month Michael has completely changed his life. He has quit his job at Drake and Sweeney but also has taken up another one with Mordecai Green. He has moved from his comfortable Georgetown apartment in a barren little flat, broken up with his wife but also found a new girlfriend. He has been arrested and put into jail and has found the meaning of life. All of this just in a month.

Of course Michael faces a showdown with his former employer along the way. The Street Lawyer may not have the usual Grisham action or courtroom drama but it does manages to capture our hearts swiftly, makes us sit back and think (even if for a day) and manages to portray yet another character who we all love and want to know what happens further in his life and further in the plot. The Street Lawyer is a yet another John Grisham book that you cannot put down.

The Reader's Den ratings:

John Grisham is among The Reader's Den's favourite authors of all time. Although The Street Lawyer is full of clichés, an unbelievable and almost overnight change and is mostly emotionally driven, we come across a world that seems unknown to us. From Mordecai Green's law offices to soup kitchens, volunteering works and frozen families, Grisham shows us a world living in ignorance and shows us that all this world needs is kindness.

⭐ 8/10

📖 Recommended to readers who love John Grisham.