I've read most of Grisham's compelling books. For me, this was the most compelling. I rarely have/make time to read a book straight through. I did this time.

      It probably wouldn't be the same for most people. I don't know. The book grabbed me because it brought forth memories almost forgotten. Grisham led me onto streets I left behind when we moved from Los Angeles. Not the same streets, but streets too much the same. He led me into shelters and kitchens and crummy offices I've seen before. He developed pictures of people I once knew. Clients, heroic workers, bureaucrats. He took me behind the scenes into lawyer's meetings where decisions were worked out. The onslaught of such memories kept me reading on. The book was fast moving, at least for me.

      Michael Brock was a lawyer on the fast track to a rich partnership in a Washington, DC law firm when circumstances turned him toward a career as a street lawyer. Through his activities readers are given a street's-eye view of life as it is for part of our society.
In order to write this book, Gresham went to the Washington Legal Clinic for the homeless where he was introduced to an unfamiliar world.

      When I first started reading the book I immediately began picking up signals that the author was not simply creating fiction. We get an inside look at how an idealistic law student moves from a vision of service to a vision of wealth. We see the difference between an attorney compelled to book hours at $300 per, and an attorney compelled to win justice for someone whose life has been trampled. We see the contrast between the powerful who don't care and those whose mission is to make the powerful care.

      The black street attorney, Mordecai Green, was Brock's tutor. I've known some streetwise workers in the city. None were attorneys, although there were always some attorneys around with some sympathy toward needs of the poor. Like Mordecai, these street servants worked out of crummy offices, with few resources and little pay. I have been on the boards of some non-profit organizations where we faced the miserly handouts of "supporting" institutions and asked those we hired to keep on with the work. I've seen those workers keep on beyond burnout, driven by the endless needs that kept appearing at their doors.

      I was reminded again of the danger of the streets, and some of the tragedies. Senseless death at the hands of drug-crazy kids came to mind. Standing at the graveside of a dad shot dead by punk kids in a street hold-up. The people who come off the street with mental problems. Our attempts to provide some therapy for those evicted from mental hospitals and prisons, addicted and demented. All the programs attempted by people who understood, while government programs were being continually started, cut back, stopped.

     For those who don't understand anything about systemic violence, Gresham will open eyes. All those politically motivated stands by people seeking public office about reducing welfare costs, putting everybody back to work, and so on, stand out like the frauds they are. The truth is that our society is more into punishing people on the bottom rather than showing any understanding or compassion.

      Here in Corvallis we have some homelessness. We have more poverty than we like to acknowledge. People go hungry. Children go without health care. We put mentally ill people in jail and prison, rather than the hospital. We treat addicts like criminals. We do mental "sweeps," not seeing the marginalized people who frequent the food kitchens, and who don't have an address or regular place to live. The book reminds me. I hope it reminds others.