The Litigators

The law firm of Finley & Figg occupies a converted bungalow on Preston Avenue in southwest Chicago, near a chaotic intersection that reliably produces car wrecks and, with them, the firm's primary source of income. The firm calls itself a "boutique," but it survives by hustling minor injury cases, cheap divorces, and drunk-driving defenses. Oscar Finley, the 62-year-old senior partner and former beat cop turned lawyer, has spent over 30 years grinding out meager fees and dreams of divorcing his demanding wife, Paula. His junior partner, Wally Figg, 45, is a brash self-promoter who advertises on park benches, city buses, and bingo cards. Despite holding a degree from the University of Chicago Law School, Wally has four ex-wives, a history of alcohol abuse, and a restless hunger for a big payday. Rochelle Gibson, the firm's Black secretary and office manager, has been running the place for eight years after first arriving as a client Wally tricked into signing a representation contract while she was in a hospital bed.

David Zinc, a 31-year-old senior associate at Rogan Rothberg, a prestigious Chicago mega-firm, suffers a nervous breakdown one morning. After five years of grueling bond underwriting—the complex arranging of corporate debt financing for large institutional clients—without ever seeing a courtroom, David snaps. He boards the elevator to his 93rd-floor office but cannot bring himself to step off, diving back through the closing doors and riding down, laughing with relief. He spends the day drinking at Abner's, a nearby bar, ignoring frantic calls from his wife, Helen, a doctoral student at Northwestern. That evening, drunk and disoriented, David spots a Finley & Figg advertisement on a city bus and takes a cab to the office. Moments after he stumbles through the door, a massive car wreck erupts at the intersection. David, still intoxicated, grabs a jagged piece of metal from the wreckage and chases off a rival lawyer trying to poach their clients. Impressed by his aggression and his Harvard Law degree, Oscar and Wally hire him the next morning at $1,000 a month plus half of whatever fees he generates.

Wally soon stumbles onto what he believes is a gold mine. At a funeral home, he meets Lyle Marino, son of a recently deceased client who was taking a cholesterol drug called Krayoxx before dying of a heart attack. Lyle shows Wally articles about Zell & Potter, a major plaintiffs' firm in Fort Lauderdale that has sued the drug's manufacturer, Varrick Labs. Wally becomes obsessed. He drags David across Chicago to sign up Krayoxx victims, beginning with Iris Klopeck, widow of Percy Klopeck, a 320-pound man who died in his sleep at 48. Over Oscar's objections, Wally mails 3,000 warning letters to the firm's client database and files a $100 million lawsuit in federal court. A Tribune article generates a flood of calls. The firm accumulates eight death cases and hundreds of non-death clients.

The case lands before Judge Harry Seawright, an 81-year-old federal judge known for his Rocket Docket, a local rule that fast-tracks cases to trial. Meanwhile, Varrick's CEO, Reuben Massey, believes Krayoxx is safe and devises a counter-strategy: select a weak plaintiff's case, push it to a quick trial, win a decisive verdict, and use the victory to crush the mass tort lawyers' enthusiasm. Varrick hires Nadine Karros, a litigation partner at Rogan Rothberg who has not lost a jury trial in over a decade, and creates a false impression of willingness to settle to lull the plaintiffs into complacency. Wally partners with Jerry Alisandros of Zell & Potter, a legendary mass tort lawyer—a specialist in litigation that aggregates thousands of similar injury claims against a single corporate defendant—who agrees to front litigation expenses in exchange for half the firm's contingency fee. Alisandros then repeatedly fails to appear in court, leaving Wally and David to face the defense alone. Through depositions, Nadine's team identifies Percy Klopeck's case as the weakest and selects it for trial.

Separately, David develops a case of his own. Through Helen's friend, he learns about Thuya Khaing, a five-year-old Burmese immigrant boy hospitalized with severe brain damage from lead poisoning. David traces the source to cheap plastic vampire teeth called Nasty Teeth that the boy kept in his mouth constantly. An expert confirms the teeth are coated with toxic lead paint, but the manufacturer cannot be identified because the family discarded the packaging. Oscar and Wally refuse to invest in further investigation, so David pursues the case independently.

The Krayoxx crisis intensifies when Senator Kirk Maxwell of Idaho dies on the Senate floor after taking the drug, prompting the FDA to pull Krayoxx from the market. The firm's non-death cases swell past 400. Wally persuades Oscar to file for divorce before settlement money arrives, proposing a scheme to hide anticipated fees through a backdated contract. David also files a federal labor lawsuit on behalf of undocumented Burmese workers exploited by Cicero Pipe, a drainage contractor. An employee named Justin Bardall breaks into the office at 2:00 a.m. with a firebomb, and Oscar, sleeping on the sofa since leaving Paula, shoots Bardall in both legs. The media coverage names Finley & Figg as a leading Krayoxx firm. David settles the labor case, his first major legal victory, and Helen gives birth to a daughter, Emma.

Then the Krayoxx litigation collapses. Zell & Potter's research team discovers that the foundational study linking Krayoxx to heart damage is flawed and that a forthcoming New England Journal of Medicine study will declare the drug safe. Alisandros withdraws, and the mass tort lawyers abandon the litigation. Wally, who prematurely sent letters promising his clients $2 million settlements, is trapped: A malpractice lawyer named Bart Shaw discovers the written guarantees and threatens to sue if the cases are dismissed, while Nadine files a motion demanding $18 million in sanctions. Cornered, the firm mortgages the office for $200,000, hires last-minute experts, and prepares for a trial it cannot win.

On the second day of trial, Oscar collapses from a massive heart attack while delivering his opening statement and is rushed to the hospital for triple bypass surgery. Wally makes a flippant remark about Krayoxx to the nearby jurors, and Judge Seawright grants a mistrial. A retrial is set for the following week, but Wally relapses into alcoholism and disappears. David negotiates a deal in chambers: Nadine drops sanctions threats if David finishes the trial alone and waives the right to appeal. Helen volunteers as his paralegal. The retrial is a debacle. David's star expert, a Russian cardiologist named Dr. Igor Borzov, proves nearly incomprehensible on the stand and is destroyed on cross-examination. Nadine presents a parade of distinguished defense experts who endorse Krayoxx's safety and detail Percy's devastating medical history. David scores unexpected points by exposing Varrick's practice of conducting clinical trials exclusively in developing countries and introducing evidence of past corporate misconduct, including deaths caused by other Varrick drugs. The jury nonetheless deliberates only 17 minutes before returning a verdict for Varrick.

That evening, David drives the barely coherent Wally to a treatment facility. On the way home, he stops at a truck stop and discovers packaged Nasty Teeth on a rack of Halloween toys. The label identifies the importer, and research connects the company to Sonesta Games, the third-largest toy company in America. New samples test positive for toxic lead. At a meeting in Sonesta's office, CEO Carl LaPorte personally apologizes to Thuya's parents, Soe and Lwin Khaing, and accepts full responsibility. David demands $5 million for the family plus $1.5 million in attorneys' fees. When Sonesta counters lower, David threatens a jury trial, and LaPorte agrees to the full $6.5 million. As David leaves, Sonesta's counsel slips him an envelope listing competitors' products with lead-poisoning histories.

At the final firm meeting, David proposes an equal three-way partnership under the name Finley, Figg & Zinc. The fees will pay off the mortgage and Krayoxx debts, fund a $100,000 bonus for Rochelle, and split the rest equally. The partnership agreement prohibits ambulance chasing, cash bribes, and unapproved advertising. As the three lawyers sit at the table, AC, the firm's dog, growls at the distant sound of an ambulance. Wally glances longingly at the window, and David tells him not to even think about it.

In the epilogue, Shaw drops his malpractice threats, and Nadine honors her promise not to seek sanctions. Thuya dies from violent seizures three days after Christmas; the settlement remains in force for his family. Oscar's divorce becomes final, and he gradually retires. The new partnership does not survive its 12-month term. David opens his own firm specializing in product liability law, taking Rochelle and AC with him. He settles two more lead-poisoning cases and builds a thriving practice. He occasionally visits Abner's for lunch and a Pearl Harbor with the indomitable Miss Spence, a nearly century-old billionaire widow and devoted daily regular at the bar whom he first befriended on his opening day of freedom.