The Litigators

by John Grisham

Oscar Finley and Wally Figg are ambulance chasers at a small law firm in the South Side of Chicago. Their constant bickering is often mediated by Rochelle, their highly competent African-American secretary. Meanwhile, David Zinc, a Harvard Law School graduate , is completely fed up with the grinding and dehumanizing – though well-paid – life of an associate in the high-powered law firm of Rogan Rothberg. David suddenly breaks away, goes on a drinking binge and by chance finds himself at the Finley & Figg office, where he willingly relegates himself to working for the two disreputable street lawyers.

Wally gets involved in a new scheme, finding claimants for a federal class action lawsuit against Krayoxx, a cholesterol-lowering drug developed by the fictional pharmaceutical company Varrick Labs. Users across the country, both dead and alive, appear to have developed toxic reactions to the drug. Though the firm is out of its depth, Wally gains the assurance of a South Florida lawyer, Jerry Alisandros, that Alisandros will handle the case and reach an out-of-court settlement, and everybody will get rich. However, complications that no one anticipated arise, including Varrick's hiring of Nadine Karros, Rogan Rothberg's ace litigator who never loses a case, and the growing evidence that there is nothing fundamentally wrong with Krayoxx. The drug works as advertised, has no ill effects, and is unjustly maligned. Varrick pushes to have the case tried in the jurisdiction of Chicago federal judge Harry Seawright, with whom Rogan Rothberg has ties. The case is expedited on Seawright's docket, with Finley & Figg's claim singled out of the tort claimants. Alisandros pulls out as co-counsel, leaving Finley & Figg to litigate the case themselves. The resulting trial brings the firm's usual cast of shady witnesses to the stand in a desperate attempt to get through the trial and avoid being sued for legal malpractice and saddled with frivolous lawsuit sanctions.

In a subsidiary plot, David Zinc stumbles on a lead poisoning brain damage case involving the child of Burmese immigrants. His efforts to identify the American company which imported the child's toxic toys from China, and reach a settlement with the importer, help him survive the demise of Finley & Figg and open his own successful law firm with Rochelle as his legal secretary.