Washington Lawyer - September/October 2020 - 48

WORTH READING

A Complex Ride to a Litigator's Final Trial

Review by Ronald Goldfarb

Grand Central Publishing

[P]erfect justice is delivered only at the

gates of heaven." This great line from Scott
Turow's latest legal thriller helps demonstrate why
the bestselling novelist has sold 30 million books
worldwide in 40 languages, with some adapted to
movies. In The Last Trial he returns to the fictional
Midwest Kindle County, population 3 million,
and to his central character, Alejandro "Sandy"
Stern, now 85 and involved with what will be his
courtroom career finale.

Stern defends his friend Kiril Pafko, a fellow
Argentinian émigré and Nobel Prize-winning
cancer research doctor. Pafko is charged in
federal court with murder, fraud, and insider
trading. In developing and manufacturing a
drug that saved lives, his company's trial procedures raised legal, ethical, and moral questions
that I will not disclose here.

Readers, especially nonlawyers, may find early
chapters complicated to follow because the U.S.
Food and Drug Administration regulatory laws
in question are complicated, and the key characters are nuanced. But Turow explores insights
into lawyering and life lessons that only a
master writer can provide, and insightful observations make it worth following a hard case.

It is Turow's reflections about the workings,
flaws, and needs of the law that enrich the
story he tells. His main character talks about
the ethics of lawyering: The criminal lawyer's
"duty to the law is greater than his duty to individual clients . . . his job is to represent the man,
not judge him," a concept that many people,
in and out of law, wrestle with.
Consider these other quotable lines: "About
7% of acquittals come when the defendant
testifies." "It is never shocking when it turns
out a client lies. It is a way of life." "Hypotheses
of innocence ... can become a beguiling fantasyland of what-ifs." And best of all, "The public
scorns lawyers - except their own."
Stern makes the case for spending his life
among criminals. He has developed an
"aesthete's appreciation for the knavishness,
the guile, the selfish cleverness . . . appreciating
human misbehavior for its miserable creativity
. . . inspired imagination . . . audacity." Stern
ponders the "inability of humans to deal with
continued on page 50

DOJ Insider Weaves Tale
of Racism, Ethics & Law
Review by Richard S. Ugelow

However, this book is a must-read for prospective, current, and former
Department of Justice attorneys and staff as the narrative ably dissects
and plays on the relationships and tensions among the DOJ, U.S.
Attorneys Offices, the FBI, and local law enforcement.
The book's main protagonist is Adrien Rush, a young, enthusiastic
attorney new to the criminal section of DOJ's Civil Rights Division. After
the Ku Klux Klan tries to resurrect a race war in Lynwood, Louisiana,
Rush is sent to investigate. He is paired with Lee Mercer, a much more

48 WASHINGTON LAWYER

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2020

experienced FBI agent from the local office.
Mercer, a black man, views Rush as an
outsider who knows little about civil rights
or Lynwood. Their forced partnership
provides the basic pathway for the story as
they try to prevent further violence. The
two forge an uneasy alliance out of necessity, but they approach both
the Klan suspects and the investigation in vastly different ways.
Readers are introduced to several striking characters, including a local
U.S. attorney who is more politician than prosecutor (and that's not necessarily all bad) and Nettie Wynn, one of the Klan's victims. The elderly
Wynn provides the moral ballast of the story. She shows how one
survives violent bigotry and knows not to fall victim a second time to
continued on page 50

Greenleaf Book Group

he new novel No Truth Left to Tell by former
federal prosecutor Michael McAuliffe will certainly
appeal to lawyers, law students, and anyone
who loves the law.

Washington Lawyer - September/October 2020

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