The King of Torts

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While Clay is slowly recovering in the hospital, Rebecca shows up to tend to him, having divorced her husband and estranged herself from her father. Regaining her love helps Clay take calmly the final blow to his career: the jury in Arizona has rejected the Maxatil tort suit, and all the millions which Clay invested in Maxatil goes down the drain. Clay is forced to declare bankruptcy, close down his firm, give up his assets, and surrender his license to practice law. The FBI stops pursuing their case against Clay due to the loyalty of an old friend who refuses to provide incriminating evidence. The main character really didn't appeal to me. He was a guy who had a fortune handed to him, blew it all on stupid shit, made stupid decisions, and basically screwed himself, and yet still comes out unscathed. Do the regular average Joes actually get their money? Yes, but the lawyer is the one who profits. The fine small print at the bottom of the forms says that the lawyer gets a third of your settlement. And a third from the other thousands of clients. Ever wondered how those ads promise all that "compensation" because there was some side effect that wasn’t disclosed properly? Or where those lawyers get that research on which pharmaceutical companies? He does do some good, like hiring his staff from the OPD and giving them big bonuses and gifts like a week in Paris for all of them plus one friend each, preferably a spouse, with all expenses paid. First class air, luxury hotel, the works.

This novel tells the story of Clay, a young lawyer struggling to make a name for himself at a little known firm. He is approached apparently randomly by a man who promises riches and fame if he follows his instructions to the letter. The requirements seem at first to be ethical and Clay is drawn into the web. He becomes a millionaire and the King of Torts leading mass civil litigation where-ever it exists. But it all seems a little too good to be true....... There is some bad language and violence but nothing graphic. There are sexual inferences and some lude remarks but again not graphic. Clay's financial/legal hubris knows few bounds, and soon he's overextended, his future hanging on the results of one product liability trial. The tension is considerable throughout, and readers will like the gentle ending, but Grisham's aim here clearly is to educate as he entertains. He can be didactic ("'Nobody earns ten million dollars in six months, Clay,'" a friend warns. "'You might win it, steal it, or have it drop out of the sky, but nobody earns money like that. It's ridiculous and obscene'"), but readers will applaud Grisham's fierce moral stance (while perhaps wondering what sort of advance he got for this book) as they cling to his words every step along the way of this powerful and gripping morality tale. (On sale Feb. 4) That said, I loved this story and the writing. It was so good to delve into a really great legal thriller.Ever seen those ads on TV where the actor playing the lawyer looks at you straight in the eye and appeals to you," If you or a loved one, has taken this medication...etc. etc., call toll free, you may be entitled to some money…?" Another interesting story by Grisham, about the corruption in legal practice and greedy lawyers taking advantage of clients. It almost felt like a Mobster film, where the main character starts out from beneath, slowly works his way up making it to the top, then in the end everything goes south and starts to crumble.

When he reluctantly takes the case of a young man charged with a random street killing, he assumes it's just another of the many senseless murders that hit Washington D.C. every week.Clay finds himself suing a large company for a bad drug-- all with the help of this mysterious man who has befriended him. When he becomes a multi-millionaire overnight, the smell of money and his greed only increase. He is hailed as the "King of Torts" and instantly thrown into the spotlight. He buys houses and jets and big boats. He becomes even more greedy and careless, and ultimately winds up with next to nothing. the re-release of which this past fall was itself a bold move) and, within the genre, working major variations. Here's his most unusual legal thriller yet—a story whose hero and villain are the same, a young man with the tragic flaw of greed; a story whose suspense arises not from physical threat but moral turmoil, and one that launches a devastating assault on a group of the author's colleagues within the law.

Whenever I see another class-action lawsuit advertisement on T.V. I will always think of this book. He agrees to never disclose why exactly his client went berserk and killed a man, and in return a mysterious man named Max promises him a whole new career with an opportunity at doing settlements for millions.Clay felt a little bad about abandoning his principles, but the Porsche and the expensive town house looked good and he had cut some of his colleagues into his good fortune. The Maxatil case collapsed and Clay went bankrupt. "Oh, Rebecca," he sighed, "leave your husband and let's just live on love and goodness and air." Grisham's storytelling genius reminds us that when it comes to legal drama, the master is in a league of his own.' - Daily Record

Grisham continues to impress with his daring, venturing out of legal thrillers entirely for A Painted House Having nothing more to lose, Clay discloses his involvement in the Tarvan affair to an investigative journalist; a criminal lawyer will attempt to re-open the cases of the Tarvan test subjects, including Watson. Clay and Rebecca fly to London, where they would have a happy life without the opulence Clay no longer misses. It is, however, implied that Clay will still end up with a few million dollars in the end, because Paulette and Rodney—with whom Clay was extremely generous and loyal in distributing his initial lucrative settlements—both promise of their own accord to return some of the money to him, never forgetting that they owe their financial success to him. The biblical principles in this novel are obvious. The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. The rich man went away sad when Jesus suggested he should give up his wealth. Another man stored up wealth in barns but was called a fool when God took his life and he wasn't prepared to meet his Maker. We are told not to love the world or anything in the world. There are numerous warnings about those who choose money over God. Even from a less religious perspective we know that absolute power corrupts absolutely....

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And he is aghast at the brash loud lawyers aggressively filing without knowing too much about the drugs. Yet soon he is one of these boys, complete with a trophy girlfriend, a private jet and flattering media coverage as "The King of Torts." Clay, like many other young John Grisham heroes, is losing his idealism about the law as he is ground down by overwork and association with the dregs of humanity. He is demoralized by trying to defend clients who deserve to be behind bars and who cannot be honest even with their own attorneys. He is in love with beautiful, sophisticated Rebecca Van Horn, with whom he has been having sex five times a week. She enjoys that aspect of their relationship but wants a husband who can provide the kind of upper-class lifestyle to which she is accustomed. Her parents regard Clay as a hopeless underachiever. They make him feel unwelcome at the upscale social affairs he manages to crash. His future looks grim. Then a violent incident in the slums of the big city changes Clay’s prospects as well as his entire moral and psychological outlook. Meanwhile, after some attentive investigation by Clay into the murky drive behind his latest client's crimes, a dark stranger by the name Max Pace who represents a pharmaceutical company drops into Clay's life and offers him an opportunity to make riches. However, this would be by changing teams to settle potential lawsuits of families affected by both his client's crime and a slew of other criminals in the D.C. area who have been influenced to commit the crimes. Representing all these families early in a class-action lawsuit a.k.a. a mass tort, would stop cold the chance the lawsuits going to a courtroom trial and avoiding potential sky-high punitive penalties against the influencing organization responsible. Meanwhile, Clay’s girlfriend, Rebecca, dumps him in favor of a corporate lawyer to please her rich family. Clay is deeply disappointed, but he’s too distracted by the complexities of the case to dwell on it. He focuses his energy on Tequila’s case—however, soon, he’s asked to resign as public defender, because it’s obvious he now knows too much. Clay decides to open his own law firm specializing in civil damages claims, or torts. He thinks this will impress Rebecca and allow him to sue the pharmaceutical company for huge sums of damages for his clients.