The Litigators

John Grisham’s novel *The Litigators* follows David Zinc, a burned-out associate at a large Chicago law firm who abruptly quits and, after a drunken binge, lands at Finley & Figg, a shabby two-lawyer storefront practice. His new partners are Oscar Finley, a former cop, and Wally Figg, an ambulance-chasing schemer whose grand plan is to strike it rich on a mass tort. The novel’s distinctive framework is its comic contrast between big-firm corporate law and the hustling, ethically slippery world of street-level litigation, set largely in Chicago and its working-class suburbs. The central scheme involves Wally’s pursuit of clients for a mass tort against Varrick Labs over the drug Krayoxx, a cholesterol medication rumored to cause heart attacks. Wally envisions thousands of plaintiffs and a huge settlement, pulling the naive David into the case. Grisham uses this plot to explore how mass torts are recruited, consolidated, and financed by lawyers, and how fragile the evidence can be before litigation collapses. A parallel thread follows a wrongful-death case involving a young boy and a toy gun, which the firm handles with more conventional negligence law. The novel also depicts the routines of a small practice: chasing ambulances, signing up clients at hospitals and funerals, scrounging for fees, and negotiating with insurers. David’s wife, Helen, and his former colleagues represent the respectable legal world he left behind. Grisham, a former lawyer, draws on his own experience to satirize attorney advertising, referral networks, and the pressure to settle. The story is more humorous and character-driven than his legal thrillers, while still examining greed, competence, and redemption within the plaintiffs’ bar.