Looking for Legal Thrillers

Marcel Berlins, who seemingly writes for every major UK paper about crime fiction, shows up in the Guardian to wonder publicly about the country’s lack of bestselling legal thriller writers, a la Grisham or Turow:

Here’s the thesis. To practise the law in Britain requires learning a new language, Lawspeak. It’s not just a question of knowing specific legal terms or jargon. The whole structure of a sentence changes. The tense is largely passive, long words are preferred to short ones and convoluted locutions are de rigueur. The trouble is that when lawyers then try to write fiction – in a voice understandable to the general reading public – they find it difficult to make the transition. It’s a problem many lawyers also have when they appear on television or radio. However knowledgeable they are on the subject, translating it from Lawspeak into ordinary speech is often beyond them.

Moreover, lawyers can’t write dialogue. In my role as a reviewer of crime fiction, I was once sent a manuscript for a thriller from a lawyer acquaintance. The plot was fine, the descriptions well written, the action fast. Only, whenever anyone said anything – Croatian terrorist, French femme fatale or London taxi-driver – it sounded like a lawyer speaking.

In contrast, American lawyers still talk in understandable American. When they write fiction, they do not need to shed their legal carapace and make a special effort to change from Lawspeak into the language of their readers. Of course courtroom dramas and legal thrillers will contain some legal terminology, but skilful writers like Grisham use them to mount simple explanations and to give the reader an insider’s feel for the legal system.

An interesting premise, but has he actually been around American lawyers? They have some pretty hefty lawspeak to learn as well. I guess I’m not totally buying Berlins’ premise, interesting as it is. Still, all the writers mentioned in this piece will no doubt be thankful for the extra mention, which is always good.