From the New York Times's Business Investigations Editor and author of Dark Towers comes an expose of the astonishing yet shadowy power wielded by the world's largest law firms, following the narrative arc of Jones Day, the firm that represented the Trump campaign and much of the Fortune 500, as a powerful encapsulation of the changes that have swept the legal industry in recent decades.
... engrossing ... compelling and well-paced ... For all his impressive research, Enrich ignores some revealing aspects of the stories he tells ... Enrich weaves an astonishing array of facts into a powerful and important picture of how mega law firms distort justice: A system where you get only as much legal protection as you can afford favors the rich and the big companies they control over people who suffer wrongs ... Like many books with a sprawling cast of characters, this one would have benefited from photos of key players, or at least a page of mini-biographies to refresh readers’ memories. Readers also deserve endnotes with more than the sparse details Enrich provides.
... informative and disturbing. In an unflattering portrait of the rise of big law, behemoth firms that reach around the globe, Enrich homes in on Jones Day ... Whether the intensity of Enrich’s disdain is deserved is debatable. The public holds lawyers in lower esteem than auto mechanics, nursing home operators, bankers and local politicians. On the other hand, lawyers fare better than reporters. Beyond that, the bar’s canons demand that lawyers zealously represent their clients. Reputational concern and the ease or difficulty of recruiting fresh talent and clients are often more potent restraints than finger-wagging ... is as much a rebuke of one large firm as it is an indictment of Trump’s Republican party.
... more a morality tale than anything. In some detail, Enrich identifies the major problem associated with mega-law firms and the power and influence they command ... Identifying a problem is usually the first step toward achieving a solution to such a problem. But Enrich stops far short of offering any solutions. Sadly, it may simply be that there are no viable solutions other than to somehow require a return to the gentlemanly or ladylike practice of law as a profession rather than as a win-at-all-costs-and-get-rich-in-the-process business.
