The Street Lawyer

Building on his use of metonymy, Grisham employs juxtaposition, or the placement of two concepts close together with contrasting effect, throughout the novel to emphasize the stark differences between the world of Drake & Sweeney and that of the unhoused. The reader’s introduction to Drake & Sweeney comes when Michael steps out of the elevator and into its “splendid, marble foyer” (2). This phrase directly contradicts Michael’s description of “the pungent odor of smoke and cheap wine and life on the street without soap” he smells on the “man with the rubber boots” on the previous page (1). From the start, Grisham plays on the reader’s preconceived notions that street people are unkempt, unclean, and harsh on the senses, while a large law firm in downtown DC is dazzling, bright, and pristine.

A few chapters later, Grisham juxtaposes descriptions of the firm with the 14th Street Legal Clinic, where Mordecai Green works: “The clinic occupied half of a three-story red-brick Victorian mansion that had seen better days. The windows on the top floor were boarded with aging plywood […] [Michael] didn’t know whether to knock or just barge in [...] It was a law office of sorts, but a very different one from the marble and mahogany of Drake & Sweeney” (36-37). Here Grisham wields juxtaposition not only to delineate disparity but also to establish foreshadowing. Once again, readers see rich versus poor: a tall, proud structure adorned with luxurious materials that instills confidence in clients upon entering versus a deteriorating building in a crime-ridden area that clearly lacks monetary support and leaves potential clients wondering where and how to enter. Michael does not realize in this moment that he is being introduced to his new office and new life, one that will be drastically different than his old one yet will have its own charms and merits, but he is immediately “fascinated with the place” (37). It takes Michael about 300 pages to understand that “the rules governing street law [are] written by those who [practice] it” (347), a fact that comes to matter much more to him than a fancy facade.

Grisham also applies the juxtaposition of spaces symbolically: From Michael’s initial perspective, big money equals high intelligence born from elite education, and lack of money signifies ignorance and lack of worth. Michael dismisses Mister as “just a nut in search of hostages” (8) who “would struggle with the numbers” on the lawyers’ tax returns (15), all because of his appearance. These assumptions come in spite of Michael being “struck by his diction” and a sense that “there had been better days” for him (7). Mister’s image is just too far outside Michael’s scope for him to assign Mister worth, at least in the beginning. It is precisely this kind of assumption, however, that Grisham uses as the catalyst for Michael’s change of heart and mind. Later, in Chapter 9, after Michael gets to know Mordecai, he compares his own privileged education at Yale to Mordecai’s “legal education [that] had taken five years, at night, while he worked a full-time job and a part-time one” (84). Because he knows Mordecai as a hardworking, highly intelligent, passionate man, Michael realizes that the pretense set up by the Drake & Sweeney ideology is a myth: Prestige and appearance do not necessarily denote intellect and worth.