Behind The Mask

VII. Legal Thriller

╔═════ ▓▓ ࿇ ▓▓ ═════╗
Legal Thriller
╚═════ ▓▓ ࿇ ▓▓ ═════╝

Legal thriller is a subgenre in which the main protagonists are attorneys. In these stories, much of the plot centers around legal actions and courtroom drama. The use of legalese and complex legal procedures is common.

Well-known legal thriller writers include John Grisham and Scott Turow.

If you write legal thrillers, explore the subgenre to connect with other like-minded writers, workshop, and publish your book.

════════ ××× ════════

Writing a legal thriller: Three tips from a criminal defense lawyer

1. Focus on authenticity

People read fiction for a variety of reasons: to escape into an imaginary world, to live alongside a book's characters, to learn about a subject or a time period, and to enrich their minds with new ideas. In any case, I find that first and foremost, readers want an engaging story with believable characters.

Still, readers of legal thrillers often seek more: They want authenticity. They want a trial that adheres to legal procedures and evidentiary rules. They want a police investigation which is realistic and they want defense lawyers, prosecutors, and judges in the story to behave as they would in real life.

To be sure, there are readers of legal thrillers who enjoy a larger than life plot where the lawyer/hero must chase down a serial killer who turns out to be the president of the United States. And there is no denying the popularity of the television series Law and Order, which depicts defense lawyers as unprincipled and prosecutors as unfairly handicapped by the 'technicalities' of the Constitution. Even so, I think there is often enough drama and tension in an accurate rendering of a criminal trial to satisfy the reader.

In my decades of experience practicing criminal law, I have found that the defense lawyers, prosecutors, cops, and judges in our justice system are comprised of the same amount of corruption as any other population. So writing a legal thriller with corrupt defense lawyers who coach their clients to lie or advise drug cartels would be realistic. Just as it true to life that some prosecutors hide evidence of innocence from the defense. And police officers will often tailor their testimony to skirt certain Constitutional protections, but rarely will they lie about the facts to convict an innocent person.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

2. Compose multifaceted criminals

In writing a legal thriller, one often feels the urge to draw up the perpetrator, or villain, as completely evil, vile thorough and through. But what I have learned in my legal practice, to my surprise, was that no matter how abhorrent the acts my clients committed, I was always able to find a vein of humanity in them with which I could identify. Like all of us, these criminals were people, meaning that they carried with them a bundle of complex and contradictory impulses, both good and bad. Most had backstories which made their life choices, while not acceptable, at least somewhat understandable.

Needless to say at this point, characters are not one-dimensional, even if they are criminals or primarily taken to be villainous. Not only is it realistic but it is also far more interesting to write an antagonist with a few redeeming characteristics. I have found that even the most law abiding citizen, one who might be seen as a pillar of the community, is capable of committing the most unforgivable crimes when under pressure or a certain set of circumstances.