MEDIA REVIEWS

The Second Chair: A Novel

LESCROART, JOHN
Dutton
2004, 405 pages, $25.95

Reviewed by ROBERT W. HIGGASON

Injuries to the soul are often deeper, requiring longer recovery time, than injuries to the body. And one of life’s recurring challenges is for the soul to survive its own fragilities and realize its resilience. Criminal defense attorney Amy Wu, as well as her boss, Dismas Hardy, each face that challenge in The Second Chair, the fifteenth novel from bestselling author John Lescroart. The ways in which Wu and Hardy each deal with their distinct, private traumas offer some broad instructive insights, packaged in the form of a captivating legal thriller.
Wu, a 30-year-old associate with the San Francisco law firm of Freeman, Farrell, Hardy & Roake, is hired to defend 17-year-old Andrew Bartlett on a double homicide charge. Andrew is accused of murdering his girlfriend and their high school English teacher when the three of them were rehearsing a school play at the teacher’s home. Evidence of Andrew’s guilt is overwhelming, including physical evidence, positive lineup identification, and his own admission that he was at the teacher’s home that evening. Wu concludes that the State can prove its case and that Andrew probably committed the murders, so she concentrates on saving Andrew from life in prison without parole, which he would almost certainly receive if convicted in adult court. Because acquittal is not a realistic goal, a trial is out of the question. If Wu can keep Andrew in the juvenile system, his maximum sentence will be eight years, to age 25. Compared to life without parole, that would be a success. To have a chance at that, Andrew will have to admit the allegations. But Andrew repeatedly denies killing anyone and insists on going to trial, even if it means adult court.
The risks inherent in taking Andrew’s case to trial present a challenge that Wu is not prepared to meet at this time. For the past several months, she has been sleepwalking through her cases, missing work or coming in late, battling hangovers, and trying to forget drunken encounters with a variety of men. She is reeling from the recent loss of her father and unresolved issues accentuated by his death. Amy Wu, half-Chinese and half-black, was abandoned by her mother when she was a child and has spent her life trying in vain to win her father’s approval. Now she must focus on representing Andrew Bartlett against a double homicide charge, while struggling to sort through the convoluted emotions triggered by her father’s death.
With Wu’s personal preoccupation clouding her judgment, she makes a deal with the prosecutor before securing Andrew’s agreement to admit. Her overreaching soon backfires and brings down on Wu (and on the firm) the wrath of both the judge and the DA’s office. As managing partner, Hardy realizes it is up to him to either fire Wu or fix the problem, or both. Rather than take over the case from Wu, however, Hardy decides to sit second chair with Wu at the hearing in what will likely be a futile attempt to keep Andrew in juvenile court. And Hardy will be ready to handle the case once it gets transferred to adult court.
With so much at stake for Andrew, Hardy himself is hardly functioning at his best. A year ago (in The First Law), Hardy was in a shootout that left four people dead, including a corrupt police lieutenant and three private security officers on contract with the City. Hardy and three close friends–brother-in-law Moses McGuire, SFPD Lieutenant Abe Glitsky, and law partner Gina Roake–were left sharing the secret about their role in the killings. The fifth and final member of Hardy’s group, his client John Holiday, lost his life in the shootout. Although the killings were in self-defense, Hardy and the others know they cannot trust the system to acquit them, and each harbors the secret in his or her own self-destructive way. Glitsky, recently promoted to deputy chief, tries to ignore a stomach ulcer while moving from one meaningless administrative meeting to another. Roake spends her time in martial arts, at the shooting range, or writing a novel, but rarely showing up at work. McGuire has lost all control of his drinking, has gained 30 pounds, and is having marital problems. Hardy drinks to escape his frequent nightmares, and his earlier motivation for the law has given way to cynicism about the system and his role in it. Their shared experience must remain a permanent secret, and it appears that its damage will be permanent as well.
As Hardy and Wu prepare for Andrew’s hearing, several other murders have been occurring in the Bay Area, apparently committed by one person, whom the newspaper has dubbed “the Executioner.” When a top deputy DA is added to the Executioner’s victims, Glitsky brushes aside his new administrative tasks and takes over the investigation, which takes some surprising turns. While Wu and Hardy try to regain the critical focus needed to save Andrew from life in prison, Glitsky tries to balance his administrative duty to help calm the public with his personal zeal for finding the serial killer. The two story lines play out in ways that keep will the reader turning pages throughout the night.
The Second Chair deals with themes of loss, grief, fatigue, cynicism, rejuvenation, faith, and commitment. For a genre sometimes considered superficially action-driven, Lescroart’s thrillers have a lot of meat on their bones. And his characters–Dismas Hardy and Abe Glitsky, along with their families and co-workers–seem not only to be alive, but to be the kind of people that would be good friends or next door neighbors. While they grapple with conflicts and flaws, they are fundamentally good and are loyal to each other.
Lescroart’s courtroom scenes are authentic, his police investigations are stimulating, and his legal maneuverings are accurate without being self-conscious. The Second Chair is another impressive thriller from an established master.

Robert W. Higgason is a solo practitioner whose work focuses on appellate matters. He is a long-time member of The Houston Lawyer editorial board and is currently the media reviews editor.




The Successful Lawyer

RISKIN, GERRY
Edge International (www.edge.ai)
2003, 6 discs, $149.95

By KRISTOPHER M. STOCKBERGER

This six-disk audio CD set by Gerry Riskin of Edge Inter-national provides management and marketing strategies based on both Riskin’s vast experience with successful firms and application of innovative business strategies to familiar aims of the legal profession. The six discs organize the material into several areas: general management and marketing theories, client coordination, co-worker coordination, developing distinction, work place efficiency and approaches to new business opportunities.
Gerry Riskin speaks professionally in the areas of firm economics and marketing. His engagements include South Africa to England and Australia. He began his legal career as a Canadian lawyer in the mid 1970s. He also obtained a graduate degree in business. He has written several other titles in the area of professional firm management and marketing including “Herding Cats,” which has remained on the Canadian Management Bestsellers list for several years, and “Practical Development: Creating the Marketing Mindset.” He currently resides in the British West Indies.
Along with Patrick McKenna, Riskin co-founded The Edge Group in 1983, which became Edge International in January 2001. The organization’s name is based on the “Edge Theory” of success that analogizes business and professional settings to, for example, a horse race in which there is only one winner, even though the runner up may have placed a mere inch, or edge, behind. By analogy, Riskin suggests, extraordinary attorneys are often only slightly better than others.
The Successful Lawyer cautions even the most successful practitioners against the temptations of the profession. Riskin identifies three propensities of attorneys: (1) ferocious independence, (2) critical and analytical approach to problem solving, and (3) tension. As a result of these propensities there tends to be a low receptivity to new ideas in the legal profession. By contrast, a business owner strives for a market edge or distinction for his product. Con-sequently, a business owner has an incentive to try something new in order to gain an advantage over his competition. Riskin proposes several practice tips to introduce business innovations into the law practice during shareholder meetings, attracting prospective clients and managing practice groups.
Riskin also identifies contributing factors to failure including the Mount Everest Syndrome and relying on “commodity work.” His solution to losing strategies is to institute a deadline for results and act within a firm schedule. He distinguishes commodity work from specialty work. Commodity work is the same for every client and is, therefore, not as valuable to the client. Commodity work also tends to involve less commitment from a client. By contrast, specialty work is specialized for each client and results in greater loyalty.
His approach to client coordination is based on sound marketing principles. A client should be given options and encouraged to take ownership of strategic decisions. This principle varies somewhat from the traditional lawyer’s role of acting for the client and later explaining actions if necessary. This and other tips are applied to everyday situations in the legal profession in a way that illustrates how to get desirable clients and rates and prevent a client’s disenchantment.
Edge International offers a 30 day product satisfaction guarantee. The six disc set lasts about 6 hours and sells for $149.95. The Successful Lawyer can be bought online in the Products section at www.edge.ai

Kristopher M. Stockberger practices with the firm of Brown Sims, P.C. He is a member of The Houston Lawyer editorial board.

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