Proof by C.E. Tobisman

Proof by C.E. Tobisman – Caroline Auden is a lawyer unlike any I have read of in fiction or encountered in real life. I know many lawyers afflicted with Auden’s obsessive personality but none who have her hacker level computer skills. For most lawyers computers are research and word processing tools.

Auden is a solo practitioner in Los Angeles. She left a large firm in dark circumstances often referred to in Proof but never clearly stated. I expect the plot of the first book in the series, Doubt, explains what happened to Auden.

As the book opens Auden is dealing with the death of her beloved Grandma Kate at The Pastures Assisted Living nursing home. It falls to Auden to deal with her grandmother’s affairs as her mother Joanne has a manic personality and her Uncle Hitch, after being forced from the L.A. Police Department, has descended into an alcoholic oblivion that has driven him to the streets of L.A.

At the nursing home Auden is shocked when the administrator produces a recent holograph, handwritten, will in which her grandmother has left all her possessions to Oasis, a charitable organization devoted to re-training the lost of society and returning them to self-sufficiency. A caregiver from Oasis advises her that her grandmother wanted to help the good works of Oasis. Still Auden cannot understand why her grandmother would, near the end of her life, would abruptly change her will.

More or less resigned to the will Auden’s attention turns to her grandfather’s watch, a beautiful work of art, but is missing from her grandmother’s room. When Auden finds out a caregiver from Oasis picked it up from the watch repair shop her frustration with Oasis turns to anger.

A bit of investigation determines Oasis is not a registered charity which shields its books from public scrutiny. Auden is convinced Oasis, through its caregivers, is influencing elderly nursing home residents to make wills in favor of Oasis.

Auden files a lawsuit against Oasis asserting “claims for undue influence, fraud and elder abuse” but gets nowhere in court.

She tries to get the District Attorney’s office to investigate Oasis. There is little interest in pursuing Oasis. Founded by a beloved children’s entertainer, Duncan Reed, and carried on by his son, Simon Reed, connections with establishment Los Angeles abound.

Officially blocked Auden turns to her hacking skills. She secures some suspicious information but far from enough to cause a criminal investigation. Auden rightly has ambivalence about her actions. She is breaching the law in her pursuit of justice. The codes of ethics for lawyers forbid breaking the law.

The consequences of her actions lead to violence that drives Auden onto the streets where she connects with her homeless uncle. Trying not to introduce spoilers into this review I will avoid particulars.

Initially I found Auden going to the streets challenging credibility but what happens among the homeless was inventive and proved to be the best part of the book.

Auden comes to appreciate the society of those cast aside by conventional society or overwhelmed by their private demons.

Among the most vivid characters is the “Mayor” who holds a unique form of leadership among the homeless. A child of wealth he finds the homeless suit him better than his family. He dispenses advice and aids the exchange of favors in a culture without money.

When Auden rather condescendingly describes a man as a schizophrenic who would benefit from medication the Mayor replies:

Schizophrenices are drowning in the same ocean that mystics are swimming in,” Floyd said. “Some are enlightened or touched. Some are just stark raving mad. Some are broken. Some were never whole. Some are sojourning here. Some are just passing through.” He paused. “Which are you?”

I found myself swiftly drawn along by Auden’s journey with the homeless as she pursues her investigation. Auden shows an ingenuity and tenacity consistent with her obsessive nature. Tobisman has an apt and evocative phrase for Auden – she is “a truffle pig for evidence”.

The conclusion is a masterly example of a lawyer inexorably presenting proof.

While there is more violence than usual in legal fiction, real blood does not flow in the courtrooms and law offices of the world, I greatly enjoyed Proof.

It is a challenge to write a great fictional lawyer. Grisham has done it best in over 20 books. Tobisman has created a wonderful lawyer in Auden.

I want to read the next in the series. I hope Tobisman tones down the thriller aspects a little,  emphasizes the impressive legal skills of Auden and includes more scenes like the gift of a carved wooden dove in repose or sleep bearing the inscription:

            “The scars are the places where the light comes in.”

2018 Winner of the Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction - Proof

Yesterday the University of Alabama School of Law and the ABA Journal announced that Proof by C.E. Tobisman was the winner of the 2018 Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction.

The other books on the shortlist were Exposed by Lisa Scottoline and Testimony by Scott Turow. I have read both of them and have been planning to read Proof but it had not been easy to find a paper copy of the book in Canada. Ironically, the copy of Proof I ordered from the Sleuth of Baker Street bookstore in Toronto arrived today and I started reading Proof tonight.

Following a personal tradition, upon my completion of Proof I will put up a review of the book and then a post on which book from the shortlist I thought deserved to win the Prize.

This year's winning author, Cindy Tobisman, is a newcomer to legal fiction compared to Scottoline and Turow. 

The ABA Journal article states:

      Tobisman is a partner with Greines, Martin, Stein & Richland 
      in Los Angeles, where she practices appellate law. Under the 
      name C.E. Tobisman, she has published two novels, Doubt and 
     Proof, and a comic book series, Inside the Loop.

The news release of the Award from the University of Alabama sets out Tobisman's reaction:

      "I am honored, humbled, and frankly, totally stunned," 
      Tobisman said. "The spirit of 'To Kill a Mockingbird' is the 
      spirit of one person's ability to make the world a little more
      fair. That the selection committee saw that spirit in my book is 
      something that I will treasure forever."

As has been the case in recent years readers of the ABA Journal were invited to help select which book would win by casting their vote at the Journal. The winner of the readers poll was a 5th vote joining the 4 individual judges.

This year the votes were 11.61% for Testimony, 16.42% for Proof and 71.98% for Exposed. I was a little surprised to see such a public landslide for Exposed.

The Prize will be awarded at the Library of Congress duing the National Book Festival in Washington, D.C.

Congratulations to Cindy and a thank you to the University of Alabama for sending me the news release.

Whipped by William Deverell

(43. – 930.) Whipped by William Deverell – Arthur Beauchamp is determinedly tending to his vegetables, goats, sheep and chickens on Garibaldi Island, one of the Gulf Islands, near Vancouver while his wife, Margaret Blake, with equal determination fights for environmental causes as the leader of the Green Party in Parliament in Ottawa. There could not be a greater difference in lifestyles.

Many days Arthur walks to the general store, a 7 km round trip, to pick up his mail and supplies such as netting to keep the robins off his strawberries. He enjoys conversations over a tea and muffin at the Brig, the local tavern. On his return he may savour some of the Roman poets, in Latin of course.

Margaret’s days in Ottawa are a scripted blur. She roars through meetings, addresses the myriad details of running a political party, works out policy positions with her staff, considers a coming election with the Deputy Leader and makes sure to attend sessions of Parliament.

Margot is a firebrand. There are not many in Canadian politics. While our politicians are not always as nice as the rest of us they strive for a gravitas and non-offensive speaking style that can make it hard to distinguish between them.

Margaret has no trouble speaking her mind. Words explode from her emotions. One fractious encounter with the Minister for the Environment, Emil Farquist, begins over a proposed oil pipeline to the West Coast and continues on to the effects of fracking for natural gas. The exchange, started in Parliament, extends to a media scrum in the hallway. Margaret gets off a parting shot by yelling “Frack you” at the Minister.

Back on the island a new movement has arrived. The Personal Transformation Mission Society establishes itself at Starkers Cove. Their handsome, even beautiful, guru, Jason Silverson is enticing islanders to join his devotees known as Transformers.

Back in Ottawa the Green Party is proving that it is like all other parties in digging for political dirt. Margaret meets with a journalist in Montreal, Lou Sabitino, who shows her a video of The Honourable Farquist engaged in a spirited session of BDSM with a dominatrix, Svetlana.

As Margaret ponders how to use the information she indiscreetly describes the video over an open microphone at a conference. Her words are overheard and become a viral sensation when tweeted.

The Minister immediately launches a massive lawsuit asserting defamation.

Margaret convinces Arthur, her life companion (the newest politically correct phrase for a spouse), to yet again interrupt his retirement to return to the courtroom to defend her. There will be no retreat from her dramatic description of the Minister being whipped. Her plea is that the words were the truth. It is a perilous approach to defending defamation. Should the defence not be able to prove truth in court the judgment will be far higher as there has been no apology and the integrity of the plaintiff has been further damaged by the failure to prove the defamatory words were truthful. Margaret is undaunted by the risks but the reporter and the dominatrix have disappeared.

In some books having a spouse as your lawyer would be implausible. Adding to the challenge is that Arthur has practiced criminal defence not civil litigation. Deverell makes Arthur’s representation of Margaret convincing. Arthur does not succumb to emotional excess. He keeps the process in perspective. Most important for credibility he draws on juniors in the firm with extensive experience in civil actions to assist him. Most realistically tensions arise between the lawyer and client arising from the marital relationship.

The story rollicks forward with The Transformers agitating the island folk as they promote love and peace while freely distributing a special drink, Gupa. As for Margaret she is fighting a two sided war - a fall election and the lawsuit.

An issue I had not comtemplated is raised in a newsletter published by a fictional national BDSM group. In today’s world does a practictioner of BDSM, whether whipper or whippee, suffer damage to his/her reputation by public relevation of their private pastime? You can only get a large judgment in defamation by showing actual damage to your reputation. Certainly political pretension is skewered in the book.

Tension rises through the winter. Svetlana has left Canada and a private investigator cannot find Lou. Readers learn Lou has found refuge in a rural Saskatchewan town with a real name. (I will discuss his experiences and the town in my next post.)

Deverell proves that civil litigation, here defamation, can be as interesting as a criminal case for a legal mystey. It may be that authors are grasping the possibilities of fictional civil cases. My favourite fiction of 2017 was Last Days of Night in which Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse were battling in court over alleged patent infringement concerning the light bulb.

And, as always, Deverell is witty throughout the book.

The Rooster Bar by John Grisham

(42. – 929.) The Rooster Bar by John Grisham – Gordon, Mark, Todd and Zola face disaster. They are third year law students at the little known for profit law school of Foggy Bottom in Washington, D.C. with no prospects but a crushing debt load. Between them they owe almost $800,000 in student loans.

They had been lured to Foggy Bottom, a law school with a dismal record of graduates passing the bar exam, by a glossy website and heavy promotion that graduates had strong prospects of high paying jobs. Grades and LSAT scores were immaterial for entry to Foggy Bottom. Easy loans from the federal government financed students at the law school.

The reality they face is a job market that has no interest in graduates from schools like Foggy Bottom. There is on over supply of law graduates from better law schools.

Upon graduation they know they will be hounded to pay back their student loans.

Gordon, bi-polar, and off his meds goes through a manic phase ultimately determining a New York lawyer and businessman has been making millions off of his ownership of their law school and other for profit law schools. He is also the largest shareholder in Swift Bank, a huge bank with customer problems of the same nature being endured by the real life Wells Fargo Bank.

Ultimately Gordy crashes and commits suicide.

The surviving trio, filled with guilt and deeply depressed, see no future in completing law school. Lacking any skills except for the minimal legal knowledge they gained in law school they decide to become fake lawyers.

They will count upon crowded courts and busy lawyers not demanding their credentials as they practice law. That they lack the knowledge to actually know how to practice law does not trouble them. They will fake it.

Not surprisingly they choose criminal law and personal injury law. In each area they can pursue clients who have little education and are desperate to have a lawyer represent them.

They pay for fake identities and go into business. Their office address is The Rooster Bar where Todd has worked part-time as a bartender.

Grisham creates a credible narrative of what happens as they venture into the illicit practice of law. As in most occupations a little knowledge is dangerous. While understanding some of the risks the trio is unaware of many of the perils facing them.

I wondered for awhile if Grisham had lost touch with legal reality as the trio appeared to be succeeding as fake lawyers but their lies and inexperience caught up with them.

There is an intriguing subplot involving Zola’s family who, after 26 years as illegal immigrants to the U.S., are about to be returned to Senegal. Born in America Zola has American citizenship and is exempt from the deportation.

The ultimate scheme concoted by the trio is clever and leads to a thriller ending I could appreciate as not far fetched.

The heroes are less pure than in most thrillers. I wish the bad guys could have been equally nuanced.

The pages flow by as swiftly as usual and I enjoyed the book but it is time for Grisham to head back to the South, preferably Mississippi. Four books have gone by since Sycamore Row. He has produced good books with interesting, even great lawyers as characters, but it has been long enough since he wrote a great book. I took a look around the net but could not determine if his next legal mystery would return to the South. 

There has also been more than enough preaching in recent books especially Gray Mountain (railing against coal mining in West Virginia), Rogue Lawyer (injustices in the American criminal justice system) and The Rooster Bar (American for profit law schools and student loans).

****

Grisham, John – (2000) - The Brethren; (2001) - A Painted House; (2002) - The Summons; (2003) - The King of Torts; (2004) - The Last Juror; (2005) - The Runaway Jury; (2005) - The Broker; (2008) - The Appeal; (2009) - The Associate; (2011) - The Confession; (2011) - The Litigators; (2012) - "G" is for John Grisham - Part I and Part II; (2013) - The Racketeer; (2013) - Grisham's Lawyers; (2013) - Analyzing Grisham's Lawyers; (2013) - Sycamore Row; (2014) - Gray Mountain and Gray Mountain and Real Life Legal Aid; (2015) - Rogue Lawyer and Sebastian Rudd; (2016) - The Whistler; (2017) - Camino Island; Probably hardcover

Wishful Seeing by Janet Kellough

Wishful Seeing by Janet Kellough – The mystery features an interesting sleuth, 59 year old Thaddeus Lewis, a minister for the Methodist Episcopal Church. He has accepted an assignment to the town of Cobourg and surrounding area. (Being set in 1853 the plot takes place before Canada was a nation. Now the province of Ontario the area was then known as Upper Canada.) He will ride a circuit conducting services in the small communities near Cobourg. To aid him is a young minister, James Small, nearing completion of his studies.

Needing a housekeeper Lewis invites his 15 year old niece, Martha Renwell, to join him in Cobourg. Glad to get away from the chores and drudgery of her family hotel Renwell becomes her grandfather’s housekeeper. She is a bright and spirited young woman starting to find her way in the world.

The plot differs from most mysteries I have read, whether set in the present of the past, in that there are descriptions of religious services led by Lewis. In particular, having been challenged by an itinerant Baptist preacher, Lewis meets his challenger to debate the issue of whether the Bible requires full immersion for baptism.

So many people gather for the debate that the meeting is moved outside the hall where the meeting had been scheduled. There is a spirited discussion whether the King James version of the Bible is an accurate translation from the original Biblical texts. They go on to argue scripture on what the Bible ordains with regard to baptism.

Not long after the Great Baptism Debate a man, Paul Sherman, is found murdered on an island in Rice Lake.

Suspicion falls on George Howell and his wife, Ellen. Witnesses have seen a man and a woman, dressed in a distinctive blue dress, rowing from the island. When the investigating officer goes to the Howell farm he finds Ellen washing such a blue dress with a significant stain that he believes to be a bloodstain.

While she is arrested and held in jail pending the trial her husband has disappeared. Known as the “Major” he has acquired a reputation for dealing in land needed for the Cobourg to Peterborough Railway under construction. Disputed titles were a staple of the Courts of that era.

Mrs. Howell lacks funds for a lawyer. Lewis, wanting her to have good representation and attracted to the lady, arranges for a young Toronto barrister, Townsend “Towns” Ashby, to take up the defence.

The book shifts to a legal mystery with Ashby as the plot proceeds through the Grand Jury hearing and later the trial for murder.

Ashby, while lacking experience, works hard to prepare for a trial bound to gain significant publicity.

It was intriguing to read how a trial was conducted 150 years ago. 

Wishful Seeing is a good book. The characters and plot are interesting. I would read another in the series. It was the 3^rd book from the shortlist for the 2017 Arthur Ellis Award for Best Crime Novel. I am finding the shortlist slower going this year.

My Choice for the 2017 Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction

My last post set out that Gone Again by James Grippando was the winner of the 2017 Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction. This post provides my thoughts on which book from the shortlist should be the winner. On the shortlist were:

1.) Gone Again;
2.) Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult; and,
3.) Last Days of Night by Graham Moore

Among the criteria for determining the winner is the direction that Award is to go “to a book length work of fiction that best illuminates the role of lawyers in society and their power to effect change”.

Gone Again is a classic death penalty case in which Jack Swyteck seeks to save Dylan Reeves from execution. While Reeves is a despicable person Swyteck comes to believe he is innocent of the murder of Sashi Burgette.

Complicating the process is that Sashi and her brother are international adopted children from Russia. A compelling subplot to the book involves the legal and ethical issues with international adoptions gone badly. I had never heard of rehoming before reading the book.

Swyteck pursues a writ of habeas corpus with a more novel claim than most such applications - there is evidence Sashi is still alive.

Gone Again does a good job of showing lawyers have an important role in society of defending the damned and challenging wrongful convictions. 

It does not really show a lawyer effecting change. There were no arguments involving the death penalty that might bring about change beyond showing the risk of executing the innocent.

It was a book about a good lawyer, Swyteck, doing his job.

In Small Great Things the defence lawyer, Kennedy, defends a black nurse, Ruth Jefferson, charged with murdering the newborn son of a pair of white supremacists.

Race, though Kennedy wants to avoid any mention, is going to be at the heart of the trial when the parents insisted on a note being put on the chart that no African Americans could care for their child and the baby dies while under Jefferson's care.

The book contains a powerful examination of America's current race relations but once again there is little in Kennedy's role that shows a lawyer effecting change.

Kennedy comes to realize her blind spots as a white American but her skillful defence is not about changing race relations. It raises consciousness but is not effecting change.

Last Days of Night is perhaps the best of the group at showing the role of lawyers. In the great war over the light bulb between Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse the book shows the important role lawyers have in determining who invented rather than improved or adapted inventions. Patent law provides a method of registration that allows inventors prove their inventions.

While the book set in the late 1880's the principles of patent law have already been well established. Young Paul Cravath is not really effecting change in society.

What Cravath does do in the book is to establish the structure of the modern team lawyer approach to complex commercial litigation. He sets a quartet of young law students to weeks and months of intensive document review and legal research. Any young lawyer in the litigation department of a big law firm will be familiar with that approach to litigation.

In examining the books concerning the role and power of lawyers none of the books was strong on the issue of the power of lawyers. All were strong on the role of lawyers in society.

Last Days of Night, as set out above, did show an innovative lawyer with regard to the structure of litigation teams. For this reason and, far more importantly for me, because I thought it the best book I have read this year I think Last Days of Night should have won the Award.

2017 did have the strongest trio of books on the shortlist for the years I have been reading the books on the shortlist. There was not a weak entry this year.

2017 Winner of the Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction - Gone Again

A few days ago Gone Again by James Grippando was chosen as the winner of the 2017 Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction. The other books on the shortlist were Last Days of Night by Graham Moore and Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult.

Grippando told Award Co-Sponsor, The American Bar Association Journal, after being chosen:

“I don’t know who’s happier, James Grippando the writer or James Grippando the lawyer,” he said. “Winning the 2017 Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction is easily the proudest moment of my dual career.”

Molly McDonough, editor and publisher of the ABA Journal said:

Grippando’s book does a masterful, entertaining job exploring the important topic of the death penalty and actual innocence.

Gone Again was not the winner of the ABA Journal’s annual poll of readers with regard to the shortlist:

          1.) Small Great Things – 83.24%

          2.) Gone Again - 13.42%

          3.) Last Days of Night - 4.22%

Small Great Things drew a higher percentage of votes than any other book in the polls of the past few years with regard to the Prize.

It is a disappointment that the University of Alabama Law School, co-sponsor of the Award, has yet to put up a post about the winner on the section of its website devoted to the Prize.

Grippando will receive the Award on September 14 at the University.

On the website of his law firm, Boies Schiller Flexner, Grippando’s biography states:

His recent litigation and appellate experience includes trademark and copyright infringement arbitration, trade secret disputes, and a major victory at the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals in a class action lawsuit involving Madoff investors. He regularly provides antitrust, intellectual property, and other advice to a wide range of clients, from Tony Award-winning Broadway producers to the world's largest sanctioning body for stock car racing.  He has lectured at various conferences for the American Bar Association and the American Intellectual Property Law Association, published editorials on timely legal issues in the National Law Journal and other major newspapers, and provided legal insights on national TV programs, such as MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” 

In my latest posts I have reviewed all of the finalists for the Award. 

My next post will set out which book I thought deserved to win the Prize.

Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult Continued

In my last post I started a review of Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult providing my perspective as a lawyer on the evidence as it unfolded in the book. This post carries on with that review with my comments as a lawyer in italics.

Now the parents are convinced this black woman murdered their child. They hate her. Jefferson’s public defender, Kennedy, wants to keep race out of the trial.

That is impossible. The note cannot be ignored. The baby’s parents are not merely prejudiced. They fervently believe in the superiority of the white race. The issue of race will be in every juror’s mind.

Ruth has spent a lifetime living the race consciousness of America. A prominent African American broadcaster and minister reaches out to her wanting to publicize her charges as racist.

Not a good idea. The parents of Davis had nothing to do with the actual circumstances of death. A public campaign does not help a defence in Canada. From the North I am not sure whether American jurors can be swayed by such overt public appeals.

Jefferson’s pride will not let her take financial assistance for her living expenses. She takes a job at McDonald’s.

Pride is more often a vice than a virtue when you are a criminal defendant. I have told many clients (I am a private counsel rather than legal aid) in trouble that they need to find the resources to properly defend their case and, if they lack the resources, they may need to seek out assistance from family and friends. Refusing help is a bad idea. I know if Ruth had a friend or family member in trouble she would offer assistance. It is not weakness to take help when it is needed. Her stubborn unwillingness to accept help when she is facing life in prison and is the single mother of a 17 year old son is great for literary tension but simply perverse when it risks his future as well as her own.

I thought of famed San Francisco defence lawyer Jake Ehrlich on his fees for defending murder. His fees were E-V-E-R-T-H-I-N-G the client owned for what could be more valuable than saving a client from execution. Ruth was not facing execution but she was facing life in prison.

It is on the eve of trial that expert evidence for the defence is found providing a credible defence.

Only in fiction to build drama would an expert be consulted so late in the process. In real life it would be one of the first steps of the defence. The author could have built just as much drama from such an early consultation and the State’s refusal to accept the evidence of the defence expert.

****

While my review above concentrates on the legal case Picoult’s focus in the book is building a powerful portrayal of the perception of race dominating American life through the examination of the charges and the trial.

For the second year in a row there is a finalist for the Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction fraught with the tensions of race relations in America.

Last year it was The Secret of Magic by Deborah Johnson. Young black lawyer, Regina Mary Robichard, goes to Mississippi in 1946 to investigate the murder of a decorated Negro (the description of the day) war veteran. She encounters a rigidly segregated American South.

Sixty-nine years later Ruth lives a life in which there is subtle segregation. She can work in a prominent hospital. She can live in a mainly white neighbourhood. Her son can attend a mainly white school. However, she is not really a part of the life of her white colleagues nor is she really a part of the neighbourhood nor is her son really a part of the school. There is tolerance rather than equality.

Small Great Things is an exceptional book. My only disappointment is in the ending but not in the result of the trial. The finish of the book after the trial felt contrived after the scorching realism of the rest of the plot. I know I expect too much of popular fiction to have a realistic ending. 

Reading Small Great Things forces white readers to face their personal attitudes towards race. Looking at my own attitudes left me uncomfortable.