As I was pondering what to write about this week, I spied a "reading plan" list of books at my desk. While that particular list is not legal, I decided to see if Google could provide me with a list of legal novels. I ran a search, and here's an article from the ABA Journal on the "25 greatest law novels...ever!"
"TheABA Journalhas been exploring a fascinating romance between lawyers and popular culture. We’ve traced this connection throughfilmsandplaysand television, and the conclusion is inescapable: Not only do lawyers seem to love pop culture; pop culture seems to love lawyers back.
But this year we’re raising the bar. We’ve attempted to survey the world of literature to find the best portrayals of lawyers and the law. Our panel picked their personal favorites. Their choices defined for us the top 25 legal novels (actually 26, as you’ll see—there was a tie!).
These are stories that have endured for years or decades, or even generations. Many of them are familiar; some of them, less so. Among them are stories of life and death, courage and betrayal, loyalty and honor, revenge and redemption—in other words, human existence."
And here's the list:
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Bleak House by Charles Dickens
The Trial by Franz Kafka
Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
Billy Budd by Herman Melville
Presumed Innocent by Scott Turow
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe
An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
The Paper Chase by John Jay Osborn Jr.
Bartleby the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street by Herman Melville
Native Son by Richard Wright
The Stranger by Albert Camus
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
A Time to Kill by John Grisham
The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
