The ABA Journal has been exploring a fascinating romance between lawyers and popular culture. We’ve traced this connection through films and plays and television, and the conclusion is inescapable: Not only do lawyers seem to love pop culture; pop culture seems to love lawyers back.
But this year we’re raising the bar. We’ve attempted to survey the world of literature to find the best portrayals of lawyers and the law. To do so, we convened a panel of experts—a worthy group of particularly well-read lawyers and scholars—and asked for their nominations. We composed a ballot that included more than 100 of the greatest novels ever written—novels whose storylines revolved around lawyers or legal cases or the moral milieu of the law.