A Civil Action

1

It is Friday on Memorial Day weekend. A thirty-one-year-old woman named Teresa Padro is waiting at a bar for a friend. A well-dressed man enters the bar and approaches her. His name is Jan Schlichtmann. He asks if she has ever heard of him. Then he tells her that he is a lawyer who represents victims. When Teresa’s friend Alma arrives, he dances with both of them.

Jan and Teresa spend most of that weekend together in Boston and are then together for the next few years.

A brief history of the growth of attorneys in America is given, starting in the seventeenth century colonies. As a child, Jan had a gift for arguing and was passionate about persuading others to his viewpoints. His father recognized his talent and urged him to become a lawyer. Instead, he studied philosophy, graduating in 1972, after which he married a fellow student. Unable to find a job, he begins selling life insurance and is very successful. He hates the work, however.

In the spring of 1973 he quits his job and begins watching the Watergate hearings. When the hearings end, he decides that he wants to do something different with his life, something to benefit society.