Legal Ethics in The Firm: ABA Rules and Hollywood
This paper analyzes John Grisham's novel and film adaptation The Firm through the lens of the American Bar Association's Model Rules of Professional Conduct. Using specific scenes and passages, the paper identifies multiple ethical violations committed by the fictional Memphis law firm Bendini, Lambert & Locke, including fraudulent billing practices, failure of supervisory responsibility, false communications, failure to report misconduct, and broader criminal conduct. Drawing on scholarship by Professor Michael Asimow and commentary by journalist Verlyn Klinkenborg, the paper also explores why lawyers are depicted so negatively in popular culture and whether those portrayals reflect real-world ethical problems in the legal profession.
- Introduction: Law Firms on Screen and on the Page: Film exaggerates lawyer ethics; The Firm introduced
- Violations of ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct in The Firm: Rule-by-rule analysis of Bendini Lambert ethical violations
- Background: Why Grisham and Others Portray Lawyers Negatively: Money culture and legal profession's eroded ideals
- Conclusion: Public skepticism persists despite defense of lawyers
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What makes this paper effective
- It grounds each ethical critique in a specific, numbered ABA Model Rule, giving the analysis a precise regulatory framework rather than relying on vague moral judgments.
- Direct quotations from Grisham's novel are paired immediately with the corresponding rule violation, creating a clear cause-and-effect structure that is easy to follow.
- The paper uses secondary scholarship (Asimow, Klinkenborg) to contextualize its close reading within broader debates about lawyer reputation and legal culture.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates applied textual analysis within a regulatory framework: it selects passages from a primary creative text, identifies the real-world professional standard that the fictional behavior violates, and cites the authoritative rule verbatim. This method transforms literary analysis into a form of legal-ethics argument, showing how fictional scenarios can be used as pedagogical illustrations of professional standards.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens with a brief framing of how film depicts lawyers, then moves into the core analytical section, which is organized rule by rule (Rules 1.5, 5.1, 7.1, 8.3, and 8.4). A separate section addresses cultural and sociological explanations for negative lawyer portrayals, drawing on journalism and an email interview. The conclusion briefly synthesizes the public perception problem and the scholarly debate about whether that perception is fair.
How accurate are movies when it comes to portraying the way in which law firms and lawyers behave — vis-à-vis ethics — in various legal situations? A fair and reasonably evenhanded answer is that, since art is an exaggeration of real life, lawyers in film tend to be depicted as extreme, severe, and even ruthlessly callous. One highly entertaining yet off-the-legal-charts example is the film The Firm, adapted from John Grisham's best-selling novel of the same title. This paper reviews and analyzes specific examples of lawyers' ethical lapses that constitute blatant violations of the American Bar Association's (ABA) Model Rules of Professional Conduct.
Certainly, The Firm — both novel and film — transcends the classic courtroom drama in which an attorney battles an aggressive prosecutor or struggles to save a falsely accused client. Instead, it moves into the territory of a high-energy crime thriller. Nevertheless, the book and film offer ample instances to examine in terms of proper lawyer conduct and law-firm governance.
Michael Asimow, in his essay "Embodiment of Evil: Law Firms in the Movies," asserts that lawyers in films are portrayed as "greedy, heartless, predatory, unethical and often buffoonish or incompetent" (Asimow, 2001, p. 2). He goes on to explain that "in several respects" this dark treatment is "generally accurate," and that depictions of law firms' "billing improprieties" and "hardball litigation tactics" seem "justified" (Asimow, p. 3).
On page 16 of his essay, Asimow turns to Grisham's films, noting that Grisham — himself an attorney — "has made a very profitable business of trashing law firms." About the only "decent human beings and ethical lawyers to be found" in Grisham's books are pro bono lawyers, legal-aid lawyers, and "young lawyers just entering the profession who have yet to be tainted by it." That last description fits Mitch McDeere perfectly: a recent Harvard Law graduate seduced into joining Bendini, Lambert & Locke by a lavish offer that includes a new car, an upscale home, a handsome salary, and promises of more perks if he plays along with the firm's many secretive, shadowy guidelines.
On page 52 of the novel, McDeere is tutored in the art of billing clients by his supervisor, Avery Tolar. "Bonuses can be earned by associates for exorbitant billing," McDeere is told (Grisham, 52). The narrator continues:
"He could bill twelve hours each day, every day, regardless of how many hours he actually worked. Twelve a day, five days a week, at three hundred an hour, for fifty weeks. Nine hundred thousand dollars! In billable time!" (Grisham, 54)
And in case McDeere still does not grasp that Bendini, Lambert & Locke utterly disregards ethical and legal considerations in billing clients, Lamar Quin explains with gusto:
"Most good lawyers can work eight or nine hours a day and bill twelve. It's called padding. It's not exactly fair to the client, but it's something everybody does. The great firms have been built by padding files. It's the name of the game." (Grisham, 58)
"Sounds unethical," McDeere replies, to which Quin responds, "A lot of things are unethical… some of the most unethical people I've met have been my own clients" (Grisham, 58). When McDeere asks whether padding is taught, Quin answers: "No. You just sort of learn it… After you've been with us a year you'll know how to work ten hours and bill twice that much. It's sort of a sixth sense lawyers acquire" (Grisham, 58).
The ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct address this directly. Rule 1.5 on Fees states that "(a) A lawyer shall not make an agreement for, charge, or collect an unreasonable fee or an unreasonable amount of expenses." Factors relevant to determining reasonableness include: (1) the time and labor required and the novelty and difficulty of the questions involved; (2) the likelihood that acceptance of the matter will preclude other employment; (3) the fee customarily charged in the locality for similar services; (4) the amount involved and the results obtained; (5) time limitations imposed by the client or circumstances; and (6) the nature and length of the professional relationship with the client.
Rule 1.5 further specifies that any fee agreement should be "(b) communicated to the client, preferably in writing," before legal services commence or within a reasonable time thereafter — and that the lawyer must honestly represent the actual hours during which services were performed. The ABA reinforced this in Formal Ethics Opinion 93-379, which acknowledged that pressure on lawyers to bill minimum hours, and on firms to maintain profits, had led the public to perceive that law firms embrace "unreasonable billing practices." As DePree and Jude note in The CPA Journal, the standards in Rule 1.5 did not go far enough, leaving clients with limited and "frequently confusing" access to information about the actual time their lawyer spent on a case (DePree et al., 1994).
In the very act of tutoring McDeere on how the billing scheme works, Quin and Tolar violate Rule 5.1, "Responsibility of Partners, Managers, and Supervisory Lawyers." Quin characterizes the firm's lawyers as "nothing but hired guns… Mouthpieces for sale to the highest bidder, available to anybody, any crook, any sleazebag with enough money to pay our outrageous fees" (Grisham, 58–59). Rule 5.1 states that "(a) A partner in a law firm" shall make reasonable efforts to ensure "all lawyers in the firm conform to the Rules of Professional Conduct," and that "(c) A lawyer shall be responsible for another lawyer's violation" of the rules if "(1) the lawyer orders or, with knowledge of the specific conduct, ratifies the conduct involved" or "(2) if the lawyer is a partner… and knows of the [unethical] conduct at a time when its consequences can be avoided or mitigated but fails to take reasonable remedial action."
McDeere responds: "You shouldn't be telling me this at this stage of my career" (Grisham, 59). Quin is dismissive: "The money makes up for it. It's amazing how much drudgery you can endure at two hundred thousand a year."
By serving as a front for organized crime, Bendini, Lambert & Locke also violates Rule 7.1, "Communications Concerning a Lawyer's Services," which states: "A lawyer shall not make a false or misleading communication about the lawyer or the lawyer's services." A communication is false or misleading if it contains "a material misrepresentation of fact or law, or omits a fact necessary to make the statement considered as a whole not materially misleading."
McDeere and his colleagues are also guilty of violating Rule 8.3, "Reporting Professional Misconduct", which states that "(a) A lawyer who knows that another lawyer has committed a violation" of the Rules of Professional Conduct "that raises a substantial question as to that lawyer's honesty, trustworthiness or fitness as a lawyer in other respects, shall inform the appropriate professional authority."
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