The Street Lawyer

“I could see our friends and a squadron of cops flying across the city, through rush-hour traffic, and descending upon the quiet little mission where the ragged street people hunched over their bowls of broth and wondered what the hell was going on.”

Michael’s initial description of a shelter demonstrates the perspective of someone who has never set foot in one. Grisham’s use of the phrase “quiet little mission” indicates Michael’s simplistic, naive views of both the place itself and the lifestyle of the people who go there. The second image of the “ragged street people hunched over their bowls,” wondering what is happening, simultaneously offers a biased view of unhoused people as dirty or unkempt and a somewhat idyllic view of the mission community, like a scene one might see in a Dickens novel.

“We sat in the middle of the pack, at a folding table with street people at our elbows. [Mordecai] was able to eat and chat as if everything was fine. I wasn’t.”

After Michael, Mordecai, and Miss Dolly feed everyone and most people are asleep, Michael and Mordecai have soup with the people who are still eating. This passage illustrates Michael’s early discomfort with the unhoused, still thinking of them as “Other.” He has trouble eating in communion with them, and later he has trouble eating because he feels guilty that he has food and they do not. During this part of the novel, it is unclear whether Michael cannot feel “fine” because his old mindset tells him he is better than they are, or because his new mindset makes him feel sympathy.

“The idea of a homeless man lamenting the lack of tables in his favorite soup kitchen struck me as humorous. Hard to get a table; how many times had I heard that from friends in Georgetown?”

In this quote, the reader again sees Michael grappling with the resource disparity between Mordecai’s world and his own. His previous community has taught him that people without homes should be grateful for whatever they get and deferent to whoever gave it to them. There should be no cause for complaints because people in need do not get to have a preference for anything. This sentiment is echoed later in the novel, when Ruby informs Michael that she does not like chocolate and prefers doughnuts with fruit filling. In the above quote, Grisham creates irony and a double message, which Michael gets to some degree: Every Human Has Value, no matter their station, and he has been living a life of obscene privilege.

“I dreaded the neat little rows of pink phone messages Polly had on my desk, the memos from higher-ups arranging meetings to inquire about my well-being, the nosy chitchat from the gossipers [...] [W]hat I dreaded most, though, was the work. Antitrust cases are long and arduous, with files so thick they require boxes, and what was the point anyway? One billion-dollar corporation fighting another. A hundred lawyers involved, all cranking out paper.”

In this characterization of Michael’s old firm, Grisham presents Drake & Sweeney as neat and tidy, with boxes to check and everything organized in rows. The image of the lawyers “cranking out paper” evokes the symbolism of the color white—clean, white paper, covering all manner of sins. People are busy, moving money and doing work, but none of it is meaningful. The work that Michael once thought of as ideal, a dream job, has become dreaded.

“That’s justice, Michael, that’s what street law is all about. Dignity.”

Although Michael has been a lawyer for many years, he rarely thinks about the idea of justice. Antitrust cases, he says, are about billion-dollar corporations fighting each other, so justice is a far-off concept that only new, passionate, idealistic lawyers think about. Mordecai introduces Michael to a world where lawyers preserve people’s dignity, where they uphold integrity, and that is what attracts Michael to street law: He wants his work to be meaningful. Mordecai embodies that ethos.

“The world was shutting down. Nothing made sense. In less than a week, I had seen six dead street people, and I was ill-equipped to handle the shock. I was an educated white lawyer, well fed and affluent, on the fast track to serious wealth and all the wonderful things it would buy […] I had no serious worries.”

Michael feels as though the world is closing in around him because his experiences with Mister, and subsequently with Mordecai and the Burtons, have disenfranchised him from everything he believed to be true. The truth is, though, that the world has been “shutting down” for some time, but he hasn’t noticed because he’s been “well fed and affluent.” Grisham’s use of the word “serious” in both connotation and denotation emphasizes Michael’s epiphany. First, Michael refers to previously moving toward “serious wealth,” using the colloquial connotation of near-infinite amounts of money that also brings power. In contrast, he says he had no “serious worries,” this time applying the denotation to indicate grave worries that would demand attention, such as those he is beginning to experience in this quote.

“I cursed Mister for derailing my life. I cursed Mordecai for making me feel guilty. And Ontario for breaking my heart.”

Earlier in the novel, Michael talks about how he and Claire dove into work to avoid the pain of their dysfunctional marriage. Michael immerses himself in business, focused on the goal of being a partner in the firm, thereby suppressing most of his emotions. In this quote, he laments that Mister, Mordecai, and Ontario have jolted him into feeling again, and his heart is now filled with pain. Ironically, it is Ontario who opens his heart (by breaking it) and not his increasingly estranged wife.

“I was determined to place some distance between myself and the street people. I would endure the funeral. I would somehow find the time to do pro bono work for the homeless. I would pursue my friendship with Mordecai, probably even become a regular in his office. I would drop in occasionally on Miss Dolly and help her feed the hungry. I would give money and help raise more of it for the poor. Certainly I could be more valuable as a source of funds than as another poverty lawyer.”

When Michael begins to immerse himself in the world of public interest law, he makes connections that, unlike his previous relationships, require him to feel and show emotion. As a result, he experiences deep pain for the first time in a while. In order to avoid the pain, he resorts to his old coping strategies: burying the pain, submerging himself in work, and disconnecting from all emotion. He is comfortable with financial support, but not a relational bond. The last line of this quote foreshadows Michael’s near future, as it expresses, ironically, the core of the novel: He is more valuable as a poverty lawyer than as a distant source of funds.

“Vintage Warner. I had a problem; he already had the solution. Nice and neat. Twelve months, I’m a new man. A quick detour, but my future is secure.”

Warner tries to reindoctrinate Michael in the ways of the Brock family, which Warner views as the way life should be. He acts as though Michael has some kind of illness that ne needs to cure, instead of a different opinion on what is valuable. In fact, his suggestion of a 12-month sabbatical sounds more like a stint in a rehabilitation facility: check in, get sober, check out, and return to “normal.” Sabbaticals, on the other hand, are usually spent learning or exploring.

“Like every med student in the country, [Claire] had begun her studies vowing that money was not the attraction. She wanted to help humanity. Same for law students. We all lied.”

This quote shows the idealism of a young professional versus the realism of a veteran. Doctors and lawyers often get stereotyped as being materialistic or greedy, so they say claim they are going into their professions to “help humanity,” hoping to restore faith in them. The irony is that they know the real attraction is the money, but they lie to themselves and others, trying to make themselves feel better about their motives. After Michael meets Mordecai, he sees what it means to truly practice a profession with the goal of helping, to sacrifice on behalf of others. Bearing witness to Mordecai’s passion is what helps Michael realize the fraudulence of his previous world. 

“If important people like senators got themselves mugged on Capitol Hill, then no one was safe.”

Grisham characterizes Michael as a man who has strong views contrary to those of his friends and family but cannot overtly express them. Instead, he hides behind snarky remarks that only the readers see. This quote, read literally, voices the perspective of Michael’s cronies: If muggers aren’t deterred by the status of a senator, then the city has a real crime problem. For them, Justice Is Relative—needed only when it applies to people they view as important and ignored for the thousands of nameless victims every day. That Michael does not feel the freedom to speak his views out loud depicts Drake & Sweeney as an environment where a single, privileged ideology crowds out all other perspectives.

“It would be our last meal together as husband and wife, ending the same way we’d begun, with something fast and prepared elsewhere.”

Throughout their relationship, Michael and Claire display a lack of willingness to “get their hands dirty,” or push past small talk and surface emotions. They are not skilled at having difficult conversations. By eating fast, they do not waste too much time away from work and they do not have to interact much. They can avoid complex feelings. Getting food “prepared elsewhere” relieves them of cooking, which would normally be a good way to bond and another way to dive into difficulty together. This avoidance of situations that would call for complex emotions is also a pattern of Michael’s and Claire’s daily lives, outside of their relationship.

“’Is this what you dreamed about in law school?’ [Barry] asked.

‘I don’t remember law school. I’ve billed too many hours since then.’”

Barry Nuzzo, like Michael’s family and wife, is incredulous at Michael’s choice to take the job at the legal clinic, which Barry views as beneath him. Looking for someone or something to “blame” for Michael’s behavior, Barry centers on the idealism of a young law student. In Michael’s reply, the reader sees that he has long allowed pursuit of wealth and status to overtake any idealistic dreams he may have once had, but also that disconnection and the blur of the years of billing hours have overpowered passion and excitement. Michael is used to feeling numb, which is part of why he is attracted to a situation that awakens feelings in him.

“We were in a part of town I would not have driven through in broad daylight in an armored vehicle two weeks ago. The storefronts were laden with black iron bars […] each stamped with the architectural blandness of hurried federal money.”

Michael has left Drake & Sweeney, but his tendency to judge people and situations by their appearance has not yet dissipated. While the bars do indicate a crime-ridden area, which is a legitimate reason for feeling threatened, Michael mentions the cheap, formulaic buildings in the same sentence. To him, the buildings indicate public or low-rent housing, which he equates to lack of education, high crime, and other social stigmas. He wants to protect himself against this neighborhood with armor; he does not yet see himself as the same brand of human as the people who live there. Through Michael’s initial negative and biased perspective, Grisham indicates the trajectory of his character arc from myopia and self-focus to empathy and connection.

“Home was an empty attic, not much larger than any three of the cubbyholes at the Samaritan House.”

In Michael’s disillusioned mind, he empathizes with unhoused people. He has just transitioned from living in a fancy, elite apartment in a wealthy area and having a partner to living alone in a rundown place a quarter of the size. This move was difficult for him emotionally, so he equates himself with the people who live at the Samaritan house. This represents another situation in which Michael lacks self-awareness, as he ignores the fact that he is a self-sufficient adult with plenty of access to housing, food, and clothing, not to mention many non-necessities.

“I tried hard not to notice my whiteness, but it was impossible. I was reasonably well-dressed, with a jacket and tie. I had known affluence for my entire life, and I was adrift in a sea of black […] I avoided eye contact and frowned at the floor.”

Michael and Mordecai do another joint intake at CCNV, and as they wait outside the locked area. Michael is self-conscious about his “whiteness” because everyone else is Black, equating his own tailored appearance and wealth with whiteness and the opposite with Blackness based on his implicit bias. He feels shame because he has not yet begun to grapple with his Personal Privilege and Responsibility, which is why he avoids eye contact. One of those Black people, however, is Mordecai, whom Michael does not seem to include in his equation. Again, he translates his discomfort into judgment of people he has not yet gotten to know.

“I was spellbound by his story. With every client I had met so far during my brief career as a homeless lawyer, I had wanted to hear the sad details of how each ended up on the streets. I wanted reassurance that it couldn’t happen to me; that folks in my class needn’t worry about such misfortune.”

As an extension of the previous quote, Michael again separates himself from his clients in condescending way, but also seems to acknowledge that this separation is intentional in order to reify the sense of safety and security his privilege affords him. He wants to hear their stories, not because he feels for them or will use the details to help them, but because he takes comfort in knowing that they are not like him; they are the “Other.” His comment that “folks in [his] class” do not need to worry about living on the streets indicates that he believes class is fixed, regardless of finances. He now makes less money, sits in a different financial bracket, and spends time with different people outside of the Drake & Sweeney world, but he wants to believe that his class hasn’t changed: He is still upper-crust, privileged, far from being without housing. This mentality implies that Michael also believes his clients’ class status is inherent and static—that regardless of what happens, they will always be “other” than him.

“There were different levels of homelessness, distinct rungs on the socioeconomic ladder.”

Here again, Michael realizes he has been making judgments on large groups of people based on his limited experiences with a few. As a carryover view from his previous life, Michael sees two groups in the world: the haves and the have-nots. While this is an improvement over his former vision, in which he only saw one group (the haves) and disregarded the existence of everyone else, it is still a dangerous stereotype. Michael’s assumption that the unhoused are all alike indicates that he sees them not as people but as “others” who have no autonomy and no right to have personalities, likes, dislikes, and so on. Oddly enough, Michael does not see his own “group” that way, even though those assumptions reflect the very things he chose to reject in leaving Drake & Sweeney.

“Privileged people don’t march and protest; their world is safe and clean and governed by laws designed to keep them happy.”

During Lontae Burton’s rally, Michael takes note of his discomfort marching among the other supporters, most of whom he assumes are not privileged. His reference to laws hearkens back to the code of conduct his father taught him and his brothers, and the “safe and clean” world reminds the reader of his unwillingness to engage in any situation that is complicated or has an unclear outcome. Michael does acknowledge, though, that he knows those parameters were designed to “keep [the privileged] happy,” which shows some awareness of his own role in reinforcing those systems of power.

“But there was also an element of horror, a fear I had never felt in my life. Many things could go wrong in the city jail. Paperwork might get lost. Delays of a dozen varieties could be created […] I could be placed in a crowded cell with unfriendly to nasty people.”

When Michael realizes he will receive jail time, he is terrified, as it forces him to face things the old version of him most wanted to avoid: discomfort and uncertain outcomes. Because it is the city jail, he imagines being grouped with derelict individuals with no concern for general societal norms. Again, he separates himself from the “unfriendly to nasty people,” even though he does not know them or what crimes they have committed, and he is about to become one of them. In fact, he resents the idea that he would belong in the same cell as they do, once again revealing his implicit bias.

“The hard-core homeless venture into shelters from time to time for a meal, or a pair of shoes, or a blanket, but they leave no trail. They do not want help. They have no desire for human contact.”

In this context, it is unclear whether Michael has dubbed this group of unhoused people “hard-core,” or whether that is a moniker they have given themselves. Either way, Michael interprets this label to include people who are so stubborn and/or independent that they will sacrifice food and shelter for anonymity, and he is incredulous at their choices. This observation reveals that Michael is only seeing a limited portion of an unhoused individual’s wants and needs—the necessity of shelter, food, and clothing. He assumes they do not want help, or that they do not want to interact with others, but he does not consider other factors like safety, autonomy, their past experiences, or any number of other variables that might affect a person’s desire to remain hidden.

“I had heard this before. Unabashed greed was to be admired. It was a slightly cruder version of what we’d been taught as children. Work hard and make plenty, and somehow society as a whole would benefit.”

Michael and Warner, his brother, argue for hours about Michael’s position at the legal clinic, namely about how it will affect Michael’s livelihood. During the conversation, Warner never addresses the cause of fighting for people’s rights and survival; he only focuses on money. Warner exemplifies “unabashed greed,” a trait Michael once believed “was to be admired.” Unlike their earlier conversation, this time Michael recognizes the self-aggrandizement and utter gluttony in their father’s life code, and he sees what it has done to Warner. A few lines later, Michael admits that this is “a fight with no winners; only an ugly draw” (295). He stops challenging Warner and simply lets him speak, but the words no longer have any effect on him.

“Trials are not always about individual wrongs; they are sometimes used as pulpits.”

Earlier in the novel, Michael admits that Mordecai sees their lawsuit as more pivotal than he does. Here, he shows that he has matured past that point and grasped a perspective that Mordecai has been trying to instill in him since the beginning. Michael finally internalizes the lesson that fighting for the rights of those with no voice is not about one person or one case; it is about using every opportunity to send a message to the world that Every Human Has Value and everyone has the right to have a voice.