1978
The Big Green Briefs, by John Grisham (the first of a two- part series).
Chapter One: in a glistening tower high above Pittsburgh, Mike Glass stared across a mahogany desk at his potential client, who made a steeple with his fingertips and murmured, “I’m wondering if you’re enough of an S.O.B. for what I have in mind.” Glass knew he was. This joker knew he was, too. It was just a little game that lawyers and clients play. S.O.B. enough? Glass had once successfully defended a towboat company’s firing of a deckhand for stealing a canned ham from the galley. Value of the ham: $5.26. Another time, a negotiator for a newly orga- nized union sat down for the first bargaining session, saw Glass across die table, and moaned, “Oh, no, notyou again.” Twenty-five months and 27 sessions later, die employees voted to decertify the union. Glass worked his cases the way he rode his ’B4 Chevy pickup (132,000 miles and counting). The only place he ever lost an argument was at home—with his wife, Sandy, and dieir kids, Brittany 6 and Patrick 3. “Mr. Glass,” said the client ominously, “have you ever heard of the Big Green Briefs?”
Chapter Two: Wilson Neely stopped his stroller in front of the empty space on 71st Street where he’d left his ’ 7 8 Rabbit the night before. Henry and Carolina, his two-year-old twins, looked up at him curiously. It wasn’t the car—or the car seats—the thieves were after, thought Neely.
Chapter Three: As he stared at his computer screen, Stu Boyd’s mind wandered. For seven years he had served the people ofNewJersey as a municipal prosecutor, protecting Pea- packians and Gladstoners from speeders, tres- passers, and dog unleashers with dogged deter- mination. Boyd’s streak of prosecutions had reached Ripkenesque proportions when he shocked the state bar by resigning to enter the boardrooms of corporate America as in-house counsel and move Rosanne and their daugh- ters Kelly 2 and Emily 1 to Tampa. Let them think what drey like, Boyd thought, as his attention snapped back to the quandary on the screen before him. Would he layup, or go for the green?
Chapter Four: “There are too many lawyers in this family,” said Nancy Hemphill, her hazel eyes glowing with the ambition that had made her an expert on the laws of all 50 states. Her husband, Todd, his lean frame worn from years of YMCA basketball, teased back, “And too many Volvos, too.” His was an ’B7 wagon; hers an ’B4 sedan. They meant a safe ride for Bonnie 8 and Mark 5. But Nancy had a point about the lawyers. From Todd’s college class there were 111—out of a total of 1,050.
Chapter Five: “I don’t advertise on TV, but I would,” snapped civil litigator Mike Urban, the junior partner in his two-lawyer New Hampshire family. Mike and his tall, blond, liti- gious wife, Liz Cronin 77, tried L.A. once. Their first day in town was October 1,1987 the day of the earthquake. They decided to move back East. Their daughterjane Marie-Terese, almost two, says “no” a lot. Born for the bar.
Chapter Six: In Hingham, Mass., Amy Woodward had traded the law for a life with Aaron 6 and Anna 3 until a certain personal item of clothing arrived in the mail. In Boston, her husband, tax-exempt finance specialist Lenny Veiser-Varon, stared down his foe with the icy vehemence instilled by years of boardroom battles up and down the North- east corridor. From a comer of his eye, he saw the admiring look of his statuesque, high- heeled client and knew that whatever they might wrestle over, it wouldn’t be his fee on this transaction. One look at his opponent’s pursed lips and fearful grimace told Veiser- Varon that victory was his. It was only a sec- ond later that he heard the tremulous, deflat- ed voice say, “All right. We agree to insert, ‘provided such consent shall not be withheld unreasonably.’”
Chapter Seven: Tall, sinewy Philadelphia business litigator George McDavid, who coolly bags courtroom victories the way he used to grab rugby balls in lineouts, met his wife, Linda (Duke 78), in law school at Case Western. With the arrival of Meghan 5, Edward 3, and Mike 1, Linda thought she was leaving the lawyering to George. But some- one was following her. And she couldn’t help but notice what he was wearing.
(To be continued. . .)
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