Kermit Roosevelt is a law professor, but his debut novel, In The Shadow Of The Law, works poorly as a legal thriller. When Roosevelt tries to describe crime scenes or confrontations—physical or legal—he falls back on pulp clichés, and he hinges his book's multiple storylines on implausible, ungainly plot twists. But that's okay, because In The Shadow Of The Law has less in common with John Grisham than with Atul Gawande, the surgeon-journalist whose essay collection Complications tackled issues in modern medicine with insight and equanimity. Roosevelt has written a talky book that mostly consists of young associates and veteran litigators debating issues in modern law, but in many ways it's more invigorating than any trashy beach-read.
The plot is driven by two cases, both handled by high-powered D.C. law firm Morgan Siler. One's a pro bono death-penalty appeal, assigned to struggling first-year associate Mark Clayton and firm wunderkind Walker Eliot. The other's a defense against a class-action suit, headed by ruthless partner Harold Fineman and troubled idealist Katja Phillips, whom Fineman is mentoring, and may be in love with. Roosevelt jumps right into the action, then later goes back to fill in details about these lawyers and their colleagues, as well as the history of the firm and its evolving ideals. Roosevelt shifts easily from one character's perspective to another, and like a well-argued brief—or a well-designed college class—In The Shadow Of The Law carefully argues for the beauty and tragedy of the American legal system.
The Platonic approach works because Roosevelt has a keen understanding of the different types who work at a law firm. He's worked at several himself, as well as serving time as a Supreme Court clerk, just like Walker, his most compelling protagonist. Roosevelt writes the kind of real-world characters who rarely show up on TV law shows, from the hopeless grinds who work 80-hour weeks to keep their billables up to the brilliant minds who use their wits to work as little as possible. Roosevelt gets a little lost when he tries to tie his lawyers' personal lives into his symposium, or when he tries to explain affairs of the heart in terms of long-range legal strategy, but his book has a broader and deeper grasp of the complexities of legal practice than the average bestseller. Because he's charmed by the human fallibility built into the law, he makes that fallibility his subject, clarifying that if laws were clear and people were reliable, courts—and courtroom dramas—would be unnecessary.