Bad Law: A Novel

By William McGrane

Bad Law is about Big Law. Meaning the largest American law firms that serve America's largest corporations. And, like GM and Chrysler, some of those Big Law firms have now hit a financial wall, with many of them filing for bankruptcy. Bad Law chronicles the story of one such Big Law firm, Broward LLP, a Big Law firm with its roots going back to California's Gold Rush days. Caught up by the euphoria of the dot.com boom and then killed off by the dot.com bust, the Broward law firm was a harbinger of things to come for many other Big Law corporate law firms after the Panic of 2008 and the onset of the present Great Recession. Bad Law is also about the personal lives and flaws of those who run Big Law firms. Bad Law -like Thackery's Vanity Fair and Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities before it-shows how the hubris of the elite sometimes leads to their defeat. The 99% will read and enjoy Bad Law , as may those among the 1% who continue to hope they will escape falling back into the 99%. Bad Law 'occupies' Big Law. "Wonderful book. I tried to persuade my wife, Kim, that some of the Bad Law stories were fictional, but she didn't believe me," says attorney Richard Plumridge, Esq., former senior partner at Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison, LLP. "Hard cases, it is said, make bad law. But they can also make good novels, and [William McGrane] has done so with a gripping tale of the seamy side of law practice; replete with ethical crises and missteps; heartless firm politics; and the brutal, fragile road to success. The story may make you uncomfortable because the fiction is only a disguise for reality, a reality many of us have faced. But, fiction or fact, [McGrane's] crisply written, insightful and unyielding novel holds you until its conclusion-and even then it stays with you," says attorney Jerome Shestack, Esq., former United States Ambassador to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, Past President of the American Bar Association, and 2006 winner of the American Bar Association Medal. "Bad Law invites speculation about whose lives and careers the novel's outrageous characters are based on. But real insight, rather than real characters, is the real point of Bad Law," says attorney Ephraim Margolin, Esq., Past President of the California Academy of Appellate Lawyers, as well as 2004 winner of the State Bar of California Trial Lawyer Hall of Fame Award. "[William McGrane] takes us on a disturbing ride through the underbelly of big-city law practice, along with a cast of characters much too close for comfort to the real thing" says attorney Robin Meadow, Esq., Past President of the Los Angeles County Bar Association, as well as Past President of the California Academy of Appellate Lawyers.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1468010956
• ISBN13: 9781468010954
• Release Date: November 2011
• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Length: 328 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.7" x 6.0"