In the Shadow of the Law

by Kermit Roosevelt III

In this complex, ambitious, and gripping first novel, Kermit Roosevelt vividly illustrates the subtle and stark effects of the law on the lives of a group of lawyers, and also on communities and private citizens.

Morgan Siler is one of Washington, D.C.'s most powerful K Street law firms, its roster of clients stocked with multi-billion-dollar corporations. Through the obsessive efforts of its founder's son, Peter Morgan, his father's old-fashioned business has been transformed into a veritable goliath, embracing bankruptcy and merger divisions that Archibald Morgan had deemed ungentlemanly. As Peter reaches the pinnacle of his career, his firm is embroiled in two difficult cases: a pro bono death-penalty case in Virginia, and a class-action lawsuit brought against Hubble Chemical of Texas after an on-site explosion killed dozens of workers.

Assigned to these cases is a group of young associates and seasoned partners struggling to make their way in the firm. Mark Clayton, fresh out of law school, is beginning to loathe his dull workload, and to be frightened by the downgrading of his personal life, when he is assigned to the pro bono case. Assisting him is the mercurial Walker Eliot, a brilliant third-year associate whose passion for the law is as great as his skill at unraveling its intricacies. The aggressive, profane, and wildly successful litigator Harold Fineman is leading the Hubble defense, assisted by first-year Katja Phillips, whose twin devotion to productivity and idealism intrigue him, and Ryan Grady, another first-year, whose quest to pick up girls is starting to interfere with his work.

In this complex, ambitious, and gripping first novel, Kermit Roosevelt vividly illustrates the subtle and stark effects of the law on the lives not only of a group of lawyers, but also on communities and private citizens. In the Shadow of the Law is a meditation about the life of the law, the organism that is a law firm, and its impact on those who come within its powerful orbit.

Genres: Fiction, Law, Thriller, Mystery, Legal Thriller, Novels, Literature

452 pages, Paperback

First published May 3, 2005

About the author

Kermit Roosevelt is an award-winning author whose latest book Allegiance has been called "an instant classic" by Nelson DeMille. His previous novel In the Shadow of the Law was the Christian Science Monitor Best Book of the Year, the winner of the Philadelphia Athenaeum Literary Award, the New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice Selection, and a national campus bestseller.

Roosevelt is a professor of constitutional law at the University of Pennsylvania. He has published in the Virginia, Michigan and Columbia law reviews, among others, and his articles have been cited twice by the Supreme Court and numerous times by state and lower federal courts.

Reviews

[mz · Rating 3 out of 5]

A deeply thought-provoking, meditative-while-suspenseful read. Law's Empire and Ronald Dworkin's jurisprudence seem to undergird some of the book's themes. This book is another book I'd recommend, though it is very different from another work of legal fiction I just read last week ( The Partner Track ). Here's a comparison of the two works:

Roosevelt's In the Shadow of the Law:
-more focus given to character's internal thoughts and feelings
-communicates multiple possible perspectives about law firm life, and multiple personalities within law firms
-seeks to communicate a philosophy of law and life
-themes of morality, truth, correctness, beauty

Wan's The Partner Track:
-more focus given to characters' and settings' external signals
-focuses on just one protagonists' narrative
-seeks to highlight the struggle of law-firm associate life and its usual futility
-themes of power, striving, achievement, success

Hopefully the above comparison communicates the flavor of this book, as well as Wan's. Both were very helpful to me as tools to assess what motivations I have - and where those motivations could be sacrificed to achieve or preserve something I value more.

[L · Rating 3 out of 5]

Yet another heavy handed biglaw misery loves company book. I don't know who enjoys these other than current and former biglaw sufferers, but enjoy it I did. This was like reading about my life.

"Caring about anything else just makes you an unhappy lawyer. A self-hating lawyer, which lots of us are. There's an incredible amount of denial. 'Oh, I'm a lawyer, but my real passion is the opera.' It's like the waiters who tell you they're actors or writers. But with them, it's temporary. Some of them make it; the rest grow up and go on to something else. Not lawyers. For lawyers, it's just 'Oh, look, I collect model sailing ships.' It's 'Check out these autographed baseballs.' People cultivate eccentricities to remind themselves that once upon a time they wanted to be something else, to persuade themselves that they still are. It doesn't work."

"And they're too fucking smart, never spend enough time on anything. Associates like that make the client unhappy with everyone else - he wants to know why this brief is costing him three times what the bright boy did the last one for. Smart, efficient people aren't meant for law firms; they just make the rest of us look bad."

[Adelina · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you are in or have been through law school, this book is genius--a vaguely satirical caricature of Big Law, corporate legal theory, and every young associate you have or will meet. If you haven't, it is the lamest excuse for a thriller you'll ever read. I forgot already what the extremely thin plot was about because I was too busy enjoying the characters.

[Saleh MoonWalker · Rating 3 out of 5]

Onvan : In the Shadow of the Law - Nevisande : Kermit Roosevelt III - ISBN : 312425880 - ISBN13 : 9780312425883 - Dar 452 Safhe - Saal e Chap : 2005

[Michael Dean Edwards · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the Shadow of the Law, Kermit Roosevelt III, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006.
After Reading This Novel, Do You Still Want to Be a Lawyer?

In his novel, “In the Shadow of the Law,” University of Pennsylvania Law-Professor Kermit Roosevelt III, crafts his legal thriller around three tactics from the writer’s strategic toolkit.

These tactical choices have particular relevance for attorneys at law:
Rhetorical analysis,
Strategic and tactical analysis,
And, the Key.

The “key” is the female lawyer who provides essential keys to crucial developments in the two contrasting legal cases featured in the book.

Our legal fem-fatale is the key, or at least holds the keys, to unlock the transition points and the climax of the novel. Her part is small, but this comes across as a commentary on the condition of women in many law firms and society as a whole. Like “Code girls” during WWII and the Black women who crunched numbers for the Mercury program at NASA, the role of women may take a back seat, but when necessity demands creative solutions, women often come to light as holders to the keys of the kingdom, to crucial elements that lead to a successful resolution of a situation. The key leads to success, to victory.

In the end, In the Shadow of the Law is a redemption story. It is about a brilliant Jewish attorney who finds his own private redemption, his singular liberation. It is about a woman, a legal
Brave heart, a cast of damned characters, and an Irish-American transforming defeat into victory through sheer persistence. Finally, the firm itself may well emerge as an anti-hero, a variety of redemption large-powerful law firms may have to be satisfied with as approaching redemption.

How does Prof. Roosevelt accomplish this legal alchemy? It is all there In the Shadow of the Law!
Four solid stars **** for Kermit Roosevelt’s premier novel!

[Catherine · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a well-written book by someone who clearly has a brilliant legal mind. I expected it to be a legal thriller, but it wasn't. Rather, it was a character study - of a law firm. And that is what I found engaging about it. For those who are not lawyers - you might think Roosevelt's characterization of life in the firm is a bit exaggerated, that he has taken some poetic license. He hasn't. His description of partners' complete lack of concern for their employees, their obsession with the bottom line, is wholly accurate. In addition, his description of the misery suffered by the junior associates is right on point - the feeling of isolation, of dreading each day. I'm not sure why I found it enjoyable to re-live the experience, but somehow, it was therapeutic. Therapy aside, the book disappointed me a little. The plot in this book was secondary to the expose on the horror of law firm life and dragged in places. Nevertheless, for those who are interested in learning about the law or what life in a big law firm is really like, it is an interesting read.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this a long time ago, so the details are gone. If you're looking for suspense and pace and action, there may be other lawyer novels that will make you happier. This one's strength is in how it describes law firm life--the internal politics, the associates who are just putting in a year or so before going on the academic market, etc. For anyone who's been there, very familiar stuff (and better writing than some of the more famous lawyers turned novelists). I've recommended this book to law students, especially non-U.S. law students, as in-your-abundant-free-time reading.

[AJ Conroy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Listed in ABA's 30 books every lawyer should read. Average as a legal thriller, but recommended reading for the summer before starting law school. In the Shadow of the Law introduces the reader to legal concepts such as jurisprudence, cannons of construction, secured transaction, bankruptcy, civil procedure, etc.

[Barbaramccoy88 · Rating 4 out of 5]

I appreciated this novel because I felt Mr. Roosevelt, himself a lawyer, was pulling back the veil to let us witness some of the nitty-gritty details of the work lawyers do and its effect on the people. It is not a thriller, and I didn't expect it to be, but it offers some interesting character studies. It's worth at least checking out from the library.

[Lynn Edwards · Rating 5 out of 5]

Charles Dickens would be clapping on the side lines, as this novel about various legal functionaries and lawyers; their forms, and their thoughts, winds itself out to show us how the Scrooge mentality forms in legal circles and why it is created. What it attracts, what it builds, what it causes to everyone around it involved in it, and what kinds of human suffering it can inflict when it is done without moral concerns for those in its structure and the general public.

If you want to know then you will read it. Try using an open mind. Do not be a Scrooge as you read it. If you want to be creative be one or more of the characters in the book. Would you do what they did? Why? It is relevant and to us all. Is this really what we all need or want? It is, quite frankly, where we all have gone. We allowed it in the ways we voted and for whom we voted, and in ways we let our state governments do what they do. The Scrooge's in the law and the changes they have made to give rich companies and people more money are already using us now.

This novel is imaginative and honest, even though it is fictional. Shakespeare would be thinking of how he could make a stellar play out of it. Dickens might have taken it on the road with his troop of actors, actresses, and plays.

Good luck.

[Seth · Rating 3 out of 5]

First off, this isn't a legal thriller, so if that's what you're looking for, search on. It's a study of the types of people that are drawn in by the law and what it does to them. Roosevelt successfully finds a tuneful note, but he plays it over and over. Meanwhile, the extremely talented Craig Wasson, for the first time I've heard, sets a trap for himself. His voices are inspired by well known actors, and when he accidentally puts too many of them in the room at once, it becomes like the Looney Tunes when Bugs Bunny sneaks into the Oscars.

[K · Rating 3 out of 5]

Morgan Siler is one of Washington, D.C.'s most powerful K Street law firms, its roster of clients stocked with multibillion-dollar corporations. The obsessive efforts of its senior partner, Peter Morgan, have transformed it from an old-fashioned business into a veritable Goliath, embracing bankruptcy and merger divisions that Peter's father, the firm's founder, had deemed ungentlemanly. As Peter reaches the pinnacle of his career, his firm is embroiled in two difficult cases: a pro bono death penalty case in Virginia, and a class action lawsuit brought against Hubble Chemical of Texas after an on-site explosion killed dozens of workers." "Assigned to these cases is a group of seasoned partners and young associates struggling to make their way in the firm. Mark Clayton, fresh out of law school, is beginning to loathe the dullness of much of his work and to be frightened by the deterioration of his personal life when he is assigned to the pro bono case. Assisting him is the mercurial Walker Eliot, a brilliant third-year associate whose passion for the law is as great as his skill at unraveling its intricacies. The aggressive, profane, and wildly successful litigator Harold Fineman is leading the Hubble defense, helped by the new associates Katja Phillips, whose odd combination of efficiency and idealism intrigues him, and Ryan Grady, whose quest to pick up girls is starting to interfere with his work.

[Sue · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book sometimes reads like a legal treatise when the author gets bogged down in the arcane arguments of his cases, but he always manages to pull me into the descriptions of the personalities of his characters to keep me reading. This novel is about life in the big law firms of today, and how everyday conflicts in law play out in the lives of the partners and associates of a big Washington law firm. We follow the development of two cases - one, a death penalty pro bono case, and the other a negligence suit in which the firm argues in defense of a big corporation sued for the death of 4 persons as a result of a car crash.

I haven't finished reading it yet, but I am enjoying just learning the ins and outs of what it is like to practice law, as told by the author who is a professor of law at Pennsylvania School of Law and has clerked for Justice Souter at the Supreme Court. I wonder if he is related to Teddy Roosevelt?

Posted by: Susan Amann, Reference Librarian

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

This would probably be a good book for 1Ls or 2Ls who know just enough to get excited when they understand the law Roosevelt references, but I don't think the general public or actually lawyers will enjoy it. It's kind of preachy at times, too into teaching at others, and way too wordy. It could have been half as long. I never thought I'd complain about there being too much character development, but my god, you have to get 3/4 of the way through before any of the cases at issue have anything substantive happen in them. Also would have been nice for a few of the characters to get their comeuppance. Ah, well. I did enjoy the portrayals of life as a junior associate at a big DC firm though--sadly quite accurate.

[Rachel Haering · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's been a while since I've read a book with characters this compelling. While I thought the ending was rushed, I loved the moral conundrums and conflicting philosophies presented by the novel, and I found the characters extremely human. Even the most selfish had relatable flaws. I was gutted that one of my favorite characters didn't have a conclusive ending to his arc and basically ignored the opportunity he had for growth, but it honestly makes sense that it would turn out that way. Roosevelt's use of point of view is unique, and his diction is beautiful. I loved the many allusions he incorporated to illuminate themes and character motivations. I'm also a sucker for anything written about the law, especially a work as complex and multi-faceted as this one.

[Christy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lawyers with widely varying personalities toil away in a large law firm in Washington D.C. Though not all of them are likable, they are all entertaining. This interesting collection of characters have their mettle tested by two different cases – a large company is sued after a deadly explosion and a mentally retarded man is accused of murder. I was pulled in by the realistic details of this kind of work, but loved it afterwards for the well-handled character arcs and revelations.

[Cathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book does for the field of law what "House of God" does for the field of medicine. It allows the reader to experience the professional side of the law, as well as the effect on the personal lives of those who practice law, from the literary equivalent of a birdseye view. The details of the cases are explained in just enough detail to give the reader the perspective of one with enough law school background to understand. While not a Grishamesque page turner, still an engrossing read.

[Kathleen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought that this novel got off to a bit of a slow start but improved rapidly. By the end, I could not put it down. It's a legal whodunnit but the focus is on the lawyers rather than the technicality of the law. Along the way, it's a rather damning indictment of the big-law firm treatment of newly minted lawyers -- if you had any questions about why the author moved from big-law to academia, this book might answer them. I found it well written and recommend it.

[Anthony · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disappointing. Started off interesting, but then I couldn't wait for it to be over so I could start the next book. Not really sure, even now, where the author was trying to take me. Was it a novel about a high-powered Washington law firm, or about two cases the firm and its attorneys were handling? Bought the book about two years ago, now I know why I just read it. Not recommended.

[Frederick Bingham · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story of a major DC law firm, one with hundreds of associates. The story follows a group of junior level lawyers through a couple of major cases. One is a lawsuit over a chemical plant that explodes. The other is a pro bono death penalty case.This book is pretty good, has a lot of very technical details about the law, mainly concerning the death penalty and corporate governance.

[Dan Cotter · Rating 4 out of 5]

this is an excellent debut novel by Roosevelt. Anyone who practices law or has lawyer in family will shake head as some of the characters in this work of fiction are developed. very good story of a big firm law practice. Roosevelt is an excellent writer of prose and we hope to see more of his work soon.

[Janet Mahlum · Rating 2 out of 5]

I listened to this on CD and it was abridged. Perhaps I would have like the unabridged better. However, my main objection is I think the author tried to cover too many points of law, too many kinds of lawyers, too many shady practices. I think focusing on just two stories/issues would have been better.

[Chick Marks · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty good for a first work of fiction,
Only annoyance is that it seems like the author must have always had a thesaurus nearby given the unusually high concentration of infrequently used and unusual words. Might not of thought about this had not a previous user of the library book underlined them all.

[Ange · Rating 4 out of 5]

I heard him speak and so got his book. Kermit is a descendant of the Roosevelts. He also teaches law. He said he wrote this book to give his students what corporate law is like. I enjoyed the book.

[Moria · Rating 3 out of 5]

it got better as it went on... i just had to push myself through the first hundred pages or so. liked it more than the emperor's children, whatever that means. i guess that this book has some redeemable characters.

[Joan Schrock · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a reflextion and an examination of an attorney on the practice of the law. I think if someone was considering being an attorney it would be an interesting read and might give them somethings to consider. I have no such asspirations so I just kinda got through it.

[Paul Parkinson]

Read this years ago and thought it was one of the best legal thrillers I'd read up to that date, and that said a lot, what with Bernhardt, Martini, Turow, Grisham, and Rosenfeldt. Anxious to read his new one.

[Sharon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting take on the law--very good plotting and some memorable characters, though there were moments when the writing tilted a bit into genre.

[Madelyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not a bad legal thriller, but Roosevelt is no Grisham. It was a decent beach read last year while I was on vacation.

[Nick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well written, if not the best storyline in the world.