In The Shadow of The Law by Kermit Roosevelt: Questions, plus a reading group guide, with links to reviews, excerpt, author biography at BookBrowse.com.

Reading Guide Questions

About this Guide

The following author biography and list of questions about In the Shadow of the Law are intended as resources to aid individual readers and book groups who would like to learn more about the author and this book. We hope that this guide will provide you a starting place for discussion, and suggest a variety of perspectives from which you might approach In the Shadow of the Law.

About the Book
Morgan Siler is one of Washington, D.C.'s most powerful K Street law firms, its roster of clients stocked with multibillion-dollar corporations. Through the obsessive efforts of its founder's son, Peter Morgan, his father's old-fashioned business has been transformed into a veritable goliath, embracing bankruptcy and merger divisions that Archibald Morgan had deemed ungentlemanly. As Peter reaches the pinnacle of his career, his firm is embroiled in two difficult cases: a pro bono death-penalty case in Virginia, and a class-action lawsuit brought against Hubble Chemical Corporation after an on-site explosion killed dozens of workers.

Assigned to these cases is a group of young associates and seasoned partners struggling to make their way in the firm. Mark Clayton, fresh out of law school, is beginning to loathe his dull workload, and to be frightened by the downgrading of his personal life, when he is assigned to the pro bono case. Assisting him is the mercurial Walker Eliot, a brilliant third-year associate whose passion for the law is as great as his skill at unraveling its intricacies. The aggressive, profane, and wildly successful litigator Harold Fineman is leading the Hubble defense, assisted by first-year Katja Phillips, whose twin devotion to productivity and idealism intrigue him, and Ryan Grady, another first-year, whose quest to pick up girls is starting to interfere with his work.

In this complex, ambitious, and gripping first novel, Kermit Roosevelt vividly illustrates the subtle and stark effects of the law on the lives not only of a group of lawyers, but also on communities and private citizens. In the Shadow of the Law is a meditation about the life of the law, the organism that is a law firm, and its impact on those who come within its powerful orbit.


Discussion Questions

1. Why do you think Kermit Roosevelt ends each part of the prologue with outside characters' approach to the law?
2. The tone of each characters' introduction is one of examination. Why do you believe the author chooses to being their stories this way?
3. What role does the history of the Morgan Siler firm play in the lives of the lawyers who now work for the company? Is the transformation of the firm representative of other changes?
4. The question of capital-C character: Aside from narrative action, how do characters reveal their true "characters"? Consider their physical, material worlds, the way they speak to others, the way they regard their personal histories, etc.
5. The "shadow" of the title implies critique, yet paradoxically, the responsibility that comes with the law's practice and interpretation. Is the book about interpretation in its many forms?
6. Discuss the author's choice to create/include court documents.
7. Katja writes on page 129, "What's the matter with law?" How and why is her question genuine?
8. Harold Fineman says, "Act and it will produce belief. That's what litigation is all about." Do you agree with this statement? How might it be altered or elaborated upon?
9. How is the firm Morgan Siler like a character?
10. Think about the characters: Mark, Katja, Harold, Walker, etc. What toll does their profession take on them? How might they be rewarded or revitalized by the practice of law?
11. What are your thoughts on the outcomes of the two cases?

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Unless otherwise stated, this discussion guide is reprinted with the permission of Picador. Any page references refer to a USA edition of the book, usually the trade paperback version, and may vary in other editions.