Its rather amazing how several people I’ve met over the last few years at lawschool, not just from NALSAR but from other colleges as well, have been inspired by John Grisham’s works to take up law and subsequently litigation as a career. Personally, I must confess that I’ve never been a fan of JG, having read but a couple of his books (and seen a few movie adaptations). Many friends point to the racy, and often rhetoric-filled moments in his books to show how Grisham has evocatively infused thrill into something as perceptibly dull as a trial. In this New York Times Op-ed, Grisham writes about his plunge into writing, having worked on a desk job during the initial years. An excerpt:
Like most small-town lawyers, I dreamed of the big case, and in 1984 it finally arrived. But this time, the case wasn’t mine. As usual, I was loitering around the courtroom, pretending to be busy. But what I was really doing was watching a trial involving a young girl who had been beaten and raped. Her testimony was gut-wrenching, graphic, heartbreaking and riveting. Every juror was crying. I remember staring at the defendant and wishing I had a gun. And like that, a story was born.
Writing was not a childhood dream of mine. I do not recall longing to write as a student. I wasn’t sure how to start. Over the following weeks I refined my plot outline and fleshed out my characters. One night I wrote “Chapter One” at the top of the first page of a legal pad; the novel, “A Time to Kill,” was finished three years later.
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