Decades ago, during a conference I attended at The National Judicial College, a discussion took place regarding the merits of the genre known as courtroom fiction. After expressing my concern that many legal-themed novels had little basis in fact, one of my judicial colleagues reminded me that what we were discussing was fiction. “In fiction,” he observed, “plot trumps everything.” So it does. After a half-century of reading courtroom thrillers from the greatest to the not-so-great, I have simply decided to accept that both writers and readers must be willing to accept departures from the real world of law as the price we pay for creating an enjoyable legal novel.

BIG LAW by Ron Liebman has several moments in its story that make that journey into the fictional legal world. But Liebman is no different from many of the great courtroom novelists. John Grisham and Michael Connelly, two of my favorites, often detour from the real world to advance their stories dramatically. In BIG LAW, the factual detours are plentiful, but the novel still has quite a bit going for it. It is a wonderful, fast-paced read with little wasted dialogue. Early in the story, the parties appear before a federal judge who is described by Liebman as a no-nonsense jurist who has little patience for lawyers who beat around the bush. These are qualities Liebman obviously admires because it is reflected in the pacing and presentation of his interesting writing.

"BIG LAW will keep you interested until the end. And along the way, it may make you think just a little more about some of the shortcomings of American justice."

Every book needs heroes and villains. In BIG LAW, the evildoer is not a person but a philosophy. It is the world run by men, mostly white men, with brilliant minds and easy smiles who at once conceal and reveal their true nature. They are predators. That philosophy is represented here by Carl Smith, the managing partner of Dunn & Sullivan, a Wall Street law firm that epitomizes everything evil about the law.

Our hero is Carney Blake, a young, recently appointed partner at Dunn & Sullivan, whose life experience is the antithesis of the large law firm pedigree and whose personal beliefs are often far different from those of his law firm. Blake has worked his way through the ranks of the firm making many concessions to his personal integrity while still maintaining a minimal sense of justice and decency that will now be tested by a new case. Smith assigns Blake a large plaintiff’s class action case, uncommon for Dunn & Sullivan, who usually finds itself defending clients in these types of situations. The case quickly becomes a disaster for the young attorney because it is not really a case at all. Page by page and chapter by chapter, the motives behind the lawsuit and its corruption seem bent on destroying Carney.

Along the way, Liebman introduces a large cast of characters. They seem to be running in countless directions without any relation to Carney’s courtroom struggle. There is a romantic interest, a dysfunctional family, evil-opposing counsel, and some seemingly unrelated characters whose importance only becomes evident in the book’s final pages. If there is a flaw in BIG LAW, it comes from the fact that several of its diverse plot lines come together in a rapid conclusion where quite a bit happens in only two dozen pages.

Nonetheless, this is a wonderful legal thriller. There is not a lot of courtroom theatrics, but that is the way our legal system really operates, with most of the battle taking place outside the courtroom. BIG LAW will keep you interested until the end. And along the way, it may make you think just a little more about some of the shortcomings of American justice.