Back when I was a lot younger and this book had first come out, this was the first book I read written by John Grisham and for a long time this has always been on my list of favourite books of all time. I always get nervous when I go to re-read a favourite book. I find that as I get older my reading tastes change, meaning that what was once my favourite might not be the same now.

Reading this now just took me back to when I was reading it the first time. I loved it. You have the perfect combination of corruption and moral righteousness. We follow Michael who at the start of the book is a high powered lawyer working in a high powered law firm. One day all that changes when a homeless man comes into the law firm and holds him and a few colleagues ransom. What follows is a mixture of figuring out the truth behind a moral situation and watching Michael as he rethinks everything.

If you have not yet picked up a John Grisham novel, this would be the perfect book to start with.


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Debra's Book Cafe

Debs :-)

A stand alone legal novel by John Grisham first published 1998.

I really enjoyed this. It’s a novel full of moral rectitude and the question it asks is ‘why, in the world’s most affluent nation, is there so much poverty’?
It’s all a bit black and white but the message is still strong for all that. The homeless are portrayed as down trodden innocents where as the legal profession are, for the most part, portrayed as money grabbing whores.

Michael Brock works in one of the nation most powerful legal firm. He makes a gross amount of money but the pursuit of all this money has made Michaels marriage a joke.

On this particular day Michaels life is about to change for ever. When entering the elevator to his office floor Michael is followed by a large smelly man dressed in lots of very dirty old cloths. This man then proceeds to follow Michael to his office where he pulls a gun and holds a handful of staff members for interrogations. In the midst of the alteration a swat team arrives and shoot the man in the head. Michael survives incident but as he stands in the office covered in the mans blood and brains he knows he will never be the same again.

With a need to understand why all this happened Michael finds himself in the offices of a legal team that is dedicated to providing legal assistance to homeless people. It doesn’t take Michael long to decide that this is what he should be doing, and so, much to his families consternation and the end of his marriage Michael leaves his well paid job to go work for the homeless.

For all its commentary on the plight of the homeless this is still a legal thriller with all the twists and turn that you would expect.

So in summation, this is a legal thriller with lots of heart.

A terrific 4 star read.

If I could pick one novel as a perfect example of character arc, this would be it.

The journey that the protagonist, Michael Brock, goes through is nothing short of extraordinary. He begins as a lawyer who has it all, living a luxurious life on his way to making it big as a partner in one of the biggest law firms in the USA, to being almost broke, working in a non-for-profit law firm. And the change doesn’t come without consequences: he divorces his - some may say - highly material wife and loses his most of his savings, his fabulous apartment and his beautiful car but instead earns respect, finds a new love and a meaningful cause to fight for.

Although the novel is highly fictional, no one can deny the hidden agenda that the author so brilliantly exposes: life in the streets of America can be tough and most often than none, those without families, money and most importantly, homes, are the ones most affected by a system that values money rather than ethics. The statistics about homelessness depicted in this novel are both heartbreaking and chilling. It makes the reader wonder how any Mordecai Greens - a lawyer in the novel who has decided his life to defend the rights of those in need - does America need to help the homeless.

The novel is extraordinary and although the ending isn’t what I, as a reader, was expecting, it resolves the main issue of the story - the good guys win and justice is done.

However, this novel isn’t much of a thriller. It’s more of a manifesto against the powers of evil and those who decide to avoid help those in need. Hence why this novel only gets three stars, when in fact, it should have deserved four.

That’s not to say though that the novel isn’t worth reading. On the contrary. It’s an extraordinary tail - entertaining, fun, and just an amazing page-turner. One hundred percent recommended. I can’t wait to read another John Grisham novel.

The first 100 pages made me cry. The last 100 pages made me smile. That’s why I love John Grisham

I always forget how much I love John Grisham until I start one of his books.

This book didn't feel like your typical Grisham courtroom drama, it just had a different feel to it, but in a good way.

The Street Lawyer takes place in Washington DC, Michael Brock is working for a big law firm that pays big money. Until one day a homeless man enters the firm and takes Brock and many other lawyers hostage. The police take out the suspect, but afterword's Michael discovers something going on in the very firm he's been working for. So Brock has a change of heart, he quits the firm and takes to the streets, now working for a lower firm that help homeless people and doesn't pay Michael as much money.

While reading this it broke my heart when introduced to the life of homeless people, even though the book was fiction, but that's the kind of stuff you see every day.

Another winner by Grisham!

Boring. Preachy. Heartbreaking. Disgusting.

What was particularly disgusting was the protagonist's racism. There were remarks about a jury consisting of "12 black faces" ('cause there can't possibly be any white people in DC, right?) and the incredulous thought "a handsome white boy thrown in the pit!" and "the shoes in question were old Nike cross-trainers. They were not basketball shoes, and should not have appealed to [him.]" (because ALL black people play basketball, right?) Ugh.

Michael Brock may have developed a conscience by accident, but he failed to develop a personality. He was a flat and boring character who babbled and whined incessantly. Was I supposed to feel sorry for him? I didn't. Not for a second.

I am a Grisham fan - or at least I was once upon a time - but I would not recommend this book to people looking for a thriller. The facts about homelessness are heartbreaking, and the struggles of the 14th Street Legal Clinic inspire sympathy, but other than that it's not worth reading.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I loved the complexity of this incredible story. It draws us into the gut wrenching, heartbreaking and devastation of what the homeless have to endure.

The Street Lawyer is a pretty interesting book that talks about an experience that a lawyer had when he was held hostage by homeless man and the investigation that he went through to find out why the homeless why did what he did
Thought-provoking with a razor-sharp plot line. This book moved me to be aware of the less fortunate in my own community, and I will do more to help others who need it.
I highly recommend this if you enjoy human-interest combined with top-notch story telling. This is the best cover-to-cover book I have read in quite a while. The story grabbed me from paragraph one and I could barely put it down until three, long nighters later, I finished the last. I really appreciated the subject matter (homelessness in a large city) and at the same time really enjoyed loosing myself in the story. It left me with a five-star reading experience and some reflections as well.
All in all, this is a gripping tale that is not only worth reading, but worth recommending. My habits will probably change based on having read this book

Equal parts sobering and illuminating, The Street Lawyer was my first introduction to Grisham. (I tend to avoid household names; just below the mainstream is where I feel most at home.) Nevertheless, I was mightily impressed with this mid-career novel of his (1998) and the social concerns it raises.

The story, set in D.C., follows Michael Brock, a Big-firm attorney who finds himself in the right place at the wrong time. He and his colleagues are taken hostage in their own office suite by a deranged homeless man bent on revenge. The gunman is dispatched, and as the smoke settles the firm is left wondering what it all meant. Before Brock can shake off his narrow brush with death and return to normalcy, he is leaked a string of information that incriminates his own firm. He soon discovers that the departed gunman and dozens of other underprivileged men, women and families were victims of a wrongful eviction by Drake & Sweeney which resulted in a number of untimely deaths.

As he comes to terms with the homelessness crisis in the city and the full extent of his firm's involvement, disillusionment sets in and Brock is compelled to course-correct both his career and his life. He walks away from his six-figure salary and Lexus to join up with one of D.C.'s most vocal defenders of social justice and the rights of the homeless. In his pursuit of answers and culprits, he plays fast and loose with the law, complicating the inevitable showdown with his former employers. Brock and his new co-litigator prepare a momentous lawsuit, attended in due course by a tumult of media attention covering the plight of society's downtrodden and the callous actions of the defendants. With their unexceptionable reputation on the line, Drake & Sweeney refuse to go down without a fight, hounding Brock relentlessly in an effort cover up their wrongdoing.

I would recommend this book to anyone and everyone. Grisham managed to compose a thrilling narrative that shines a light onto a part of society that most would rather not see or think about without being overly preachy or histrionic. The attorney-speak is kept to a minimum, and the characters involved are easy to connect with. I look forward to delving further into Grisham's corpus.

*

17May2021

titular sentence:
p70: The stories rolled on, one after the other, all ending with the street lawyers as the good guys, the homeless as the victors.

A tame(?) version of The Rainmaker (a little light on courtroom action). I'm ashamed to admit that somehow this never made an impression the first time I read it (kudos to my colleague JeanDo who lent me a paperback back in 2012; took me a week).

It's appalling to see seemingly innocuous shortcuts devastate other people's lives. Check your greed at the door, please.

My first Grisham novel. I really enjoyed it!