David Zinc has it all: Big firm, big salary, life in the lawyer's fast lane.
Until the day he snaps and throws it all away.
Leaving the world of corporate law far behind, he talks himself into a new job with Finley & Figg. A self-styled 'boutique' firm with only two partners, Oscar Finley and Wally Figg are ambulance-chasing street lawyers who hustle nickel-and-dime cases, dreaming of landing the big win.
For all his Harvard Law Degree and five years with Chicago's top firm, Zinc has never entered a courtroom, never helped a client who really needed a lawyer, never handled a gun.
All that is about to change.
Rating: 4 Stars
Positives: Having never read a legal thriller before and being in two minds about it when I picked up The Litigators I was pleasantly surprised. Each of the characters is well developed and I found myself particularly drawn to Wally Figg as a character. He's definitely more ambitious than his senior partner, but I think he also has a little naivety when it comes to playing ball with the big boys. And while in theory the Krayoxx cases seem like a harebrained scheme that might finally earn Wally that money he's looking for, we see his two biggest flaws come into play.
And whilst the main story of the Krayoxx cases are very interesting, and I certainly learned a lot about America's judicial system, I found myself more drawn to a subplot. There's a beautiful second story of a young Burmese boy who ends up in hospital with severe lead poisoning from a set of Nasty Teeth (plastic fangs designed to be worn over the teeth), which nicely shows not only another more compassionate side of David Zinc, in fact the lengths he goes to to help Thuya and his family are amazing, but it also nicely sets things up for the epilogue.
Finally I liked that this story didn't end in the way that I'd expected it too. I kept expecting something amazing to happen for Finley & Figg, and it was pleasant to have a much more realistic story.
Negatives: So my gripes. Firstly whilst we get to learn a lot about David and Wally's personal lives, we don't really discover that much about Oscar. Okay I get that David is the main character, and the Krayoxx trial is Wally's baby so they are explored deeply for those for those reasons, but it would have been nice to learn more about Oscar. All we really learn is that his wife takes Krayoxx, really doesn't appreciate Oscar at all thinking he doesn't earn enough and that he eventually mans up and divorces her. We know nothing of what makes Oscar tick.
My other gripe is that when the lawyers for various corporations are sat discussing things such as settlements, it can become a bit tedious reading long strings of numbers and trying to keep track of total values. I admit these figures and lists are probably realistic, but it makes for tedious reading. (Guess this just proves that I'm not cut out to be a lawyer).
Would I recommend this book? Yes I would. Overall this was a really good read and while it was a bit slow starting, after a few chapters I was hooked.
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