The Gazette 1995

NOVEMBER 1995

GAZETTE

B O O K

R E V I E W S

reason to talk slow and repeat himself. It pays to be thorough, even tedious, when billing at that rate."

John Grisham is a very good story teller, even if you feel his heroes are what the author would really wish himself to be. Irish solicitors and barristers can enjoy the book, comforted by the 'atlantical' distance between what allegedly happens in the practice of law in America and what, of course on a much higher moral plane(!), happens here.

The Rainmaker

By John Grisham. Published by Century, London, 1995; hardback, IR£16.50.

His liberal, crusading streak is demonstrated by his Rainmaker

hero

reasoning as follows:

Are lawyers good people? John Grisham, the legal story teller,

" My model juror is young and black with at least a high school education. It's ancient wisdom that blacks make better plaintiff's jurors. They feel for the underdog and distrust white corporate America. Who can blame t h em?" The Rainmaker is about a law student, Rudy Baylor, who loses a j o b offered to him in a Memphis law firm before he starts due to it being taken over by a larger firm, just before his Tennessee bar examination. Heavily in debt, Rudy struggles on and becomes a lawyer, with his first trial in court a 'bad faith' case against an insurance company which has rejected a health insurance claim in respect of a boy dying of leukaemia who would probably have been saved if he could have had, in time, a very expensive bone marrow transplant from his twin brother. The insurance company is represented by the big law firm who took over Rudy 's would-be employer, which enables his anger at the insurance c ompany 's treatment o f his client to be also directed at the big firm - thus providing a convenient vehicle for the author to engage in criticism of the 'modus operandi' of the large impersonal practice defending by all means, fair or foul, the unmeritorious client. At the end o f the trial which is the central theme of the book, Rudy (aka Grisham?) reflects: " R i ght now, though, I 'm sick at work, I want to get on a plane and find a b e a c h" - perhaps the tired wish o f many trial lawyers the world over, but only capable of being fulfiled or afforded by a small minority o f them, perhaps like Grisham himself.

probably the most popular author in the world, would likely concede that a small minority of them are. His five previous books ( A Time to Kill, The Firm, The Pelican Brief, The Client and The Chamber) have all been best sellers worldwide and have sold over 6 0 million copies in the English language. John Grisham was a lawyer from Mississippi, who discovered that writing about lawyers opposing racism, the Mafia, corporate thuggery, devious cops and district attornies, and the death penalty, can generate more money than actually practising as a lawyer. For Grisham, as long as most of his lawyer characters are characterised as short on ethical principles and greedy, the individual lawyer fighting the uphill battle for justice and the just cause - can be the heroic subject of each o f his books. is Grisham's latest and arguably his best yet. It is written in the first person and probably reflects more than his earlier books why he feels being a writer critically commenting on the American legal profession is more fulfiling than actually being a liberal, humane, crusading lawyer in the Southern United States. A good example of that criticism is the following reference to the big firm lawyer character: . . Drummond bills two-hundred fifty bucks an hour for office work, three-fifty when in court. Th a t 's well below New Yo rk and Washington standards, but it's very high for Memphis. He has good The Rainmaker

Michael V. O'Mahony

The Law of Extradition in the United Kingdom

By Michael Forde. Published by Round Hall Press. Second Edition (1995) 261pp; hardbook, £42.50. The law on the extradition (surrender) of persons from one jurisdiction to another has undergone significant change in both the United Kingdom and Ireland in the last decade. Change reflects varying political situations arising from, though not limited to, the Anglo-Irish Agreement of November 1985, the "political offence exception" (one of the most controversial aspects) of extradition law, and the far-reaching Convention on the Suppression of Terrorism (Council of Europe, 2 7 . 1 . 1 9 7 7 ). The Convention, signed by all 21 member states of the Council (including Ireland), specifies offences not be regarded as or connected with a political offence or inspired by political motives. This effectively restates earlier decisions in cases such as Quinn v Wren [1985] I.R. 322 which decided that members of organisations dedicated to overthrowing the State by unlawful means could not claim the benefit of the political offence exception [Section 5 0 (Irish) Extradition Act, 1965]. Procedural changes reflect the need for a uniform system of

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