After ten years in a large Dallas law firm and after making partner, Mark Gimenez has moved with his family outside Ft. Worth to write.
But after eleven years in a large Dallas law firm and after making partner, A. Scott Fenney had no such plans. His future was money. Green, it turns out, is The Color of Law
Fenney, a former star running back at SMU who married Miss SMU, has been on the fast track with a Dallas firm. But after he gives a rousing speech to colleagues about the nobility of law, invoking the memories of his mother reading to him about Atticus Finch (a speech which he later admits he didn’t believe), a federal judge appoints him to represent a black prostitute from East Dallas who is being charged with murder.
And, we learn, the man she supposedly murdered after he picked her up on Harry Hines Boulevard is the son of a powerful, wealthy Texas senator with aspirations for the White House.
Representing her holds the potential for career suicide since the powerful senator will do anything to keep the name of his son from being raked through the mud — which would be required since the son had a history of slapping around prostitutes and dates.
He comes to a critical fork in the road: will he continue with the dream life in “the Bubble” of Highland Park, or will he provide the counsel for this young mother?
As the Texas Monthly said, The Color of Law
It would be a great novel for a group of university students to work through along with To Kill a Mockingbird, which it continually refers back to. (Fair, warning, however: If Grisham is PG and Turow is R, Gimenez’s first novel is maybe a PG-13. Or, say, PG-16.)
I won’t be surprised if sometime I find out that “Mark Gimenez” is a pen name for Larry James. For through the events of the story, Gimenez forces us to think about the gap between a place like Highland Park and a place like East Dallas. How could two places be so close and so far?
I liked knowing the city where the action is set. I’ve driven down those roads (Lover’s Lane, Mockingbird, Preston Road, etc.) and seen those shopping centers.
But at the same time, there is discomfort. Here are some passages:
“A concrete-and-steel landscape as far as the eye can see, all the way to the brown haze of pollution that perpetually rings the city above the loop, treeless and barren, the city’s master plan obvious — to pave over every square inch of green . . . . Which might explain Dallas’s ranking as the ugliest major city in America. Other than women, Dallas has no natural beauty whatsoever. No ocean or lake or water of any kind except the Trinity River running west of downtown, used for decades as a natural sewage system and today as a big drainage ditch. No Central Park, no Rocky Mountains, and no Miami Beach. No wonderful weather. Nothing other great cities have. All Dallas has is a white X on Elm Street marking the exact spot where an American president was killed. But then, you don’t live in Dallas for any of that; you live in Dallas to make a lot of money fast.”
“Grammar skills notwithstanding, she was a fine example of what Texas men most want — a gorgeous Texas girl. Texas myths were many, but one was no myth: the most gorgeous girls in the world were found in Texas. Dallas, Texas. Girls like her, they graduate from high school or maybe junior college, and from small towns all across Texas they had straight to Dallas like moths to light. They come for the jobs, they come for the nightlife, they come for the single men making lots of money, the kind of money that buys big homes and fancy cars and fashionable clothes and glittery jewelry guaranteed to bring a smile to any Texas girl’s face. Girl wants to marry a refinery worker and live in a double-wide, she moves to Houston; girl wants to marry money and live in a mansion, she moves to Dallas.”
“Developed in 1906 on thirteen hundred acres of high land above downtown Dallas, Highland Park today is a sanctuary of elegant homes, landscaped lawns, and broad avenues canopied by towering oak trees. On its wide sidewalks European nannies and Mexican maids can be seen pushing the heirs of the great Texas fortunes in strollers while their fathers — billionaires and millionaires and the lawyers who tend to them — work in the downtown skyscrapers and their mothers play tennis at the country club and shop at Anne Fontaine, Luca Luca, and Botega Veneta in the Highland Park Village shopping center, its Spanish Mediterranean architecture and quaint stucco buildings with terra-cotta roofs and decorative wrought iron harking back to a distant time and place when great wealth was reserved for people of a certain class, not just anyone who could dunk a basketball. Visitors from California say the town reminds them of Beverly Hills, and with good reason: the same architect who designed Beverly Hills designed Highland Park. Only difference is, the founders of Beverly Hills did not file deed restrictions that legally limited home ownership in their new town to white people only; the founders of Highland Park did. Almost a hundred years later, the Town of Highland Park is a two-square-mile island entirely surrounded by the 384-square-mile City of Dallas. It’s an island of white in an ocean of color: Dallas, a city of 1.2 million residents, is now only 39 percent white; while Highland Park, a town of 8,850 residents, remains 98 percent white, with not a single home owned by a black person. It’s an island of wealth — on any given day over a hundred homes in Highland Park will be listed for sale at prices exceeding $1 million. It’s an island immune from the crime and social ills that affect Dallas — Highland Park kids call their hometown “the Bubble,” happy to be insulated from the outside world that beckons at the town boundary — albeit an island without a river or stream or even a moat to keep the outside world out, only the highest home prices in Texas, a well-armed police force, and a long-standing reputation that if you’re black or brown and don’t live there, you’d damn well better be passing through.”
“Thirty-six years Scott Fenney had lived in Dallas and not once had he driven into South Dallas. White people drove south of downtown three times each year and only for events held within the gated Fair Park grounds — the State Fair, the Oklahoma-Texas football game, and the Cotton Bowl game — being careful to stay on the interstate, to take the Fair Park exit, and to drive directly through the park gates without detour or delay. White people never drove into South Dallas, into the neighborhoods and mean streets of South Dallas, into the other Dallas of crime and crack cocaine, prostitution and poverty, drive-by shootings and gangbangers, into black Dallas . . . .”
When he continues to represent the woman on trial, his senior partner says to him:
“When I graduated from law school, Scotty, a wise older lawyer gave me some good advice. He said, ‘Dan, every new lawyer must make a fundamental choice from which every other decision in his professional life will flow. And that choice is simple: Do you want to do good or do well? Do you want to make money or make the world a better place? Do you want to drive a Cadillac or a Chevrolet? Do you want to send your kids to private schools or public schools? Do you want to be a rich lawyer or a poor lawyer?’ He said, ‘Dan, if you want to do good, go work for legal aid and help the little people fighting their landlords and the utility companies and the police and feel good about it. But don’t have regrets twenty years later when your classmates are living in nice homes and driving new cars and taking vacations in Europe. And you have to tell your kids they can’t go to an Ivy League school because you did good.’”
Well, I have so many other passages marked. It is about Dallas, but it far transcends one city. It’s about lawyers, but it moves far beyond that.
It’s about justice, isolation, racism, materialism, law, service, courage, character, and beauty. (”Rebecca Fenney was still remarkably beautiful, still the most beautiful woman in Highland Park, still able to compete with a twenty-two-year old for her lawyer. But the day would come for her, she knew; and with each passing day, Rebecca Fenney was a day older and a day less beautiful.”)
It’s about Atticus Finch. Even before he was Gregory Peck.
At a critical moment when Fenney is explaining to his senior partner that without good representation his client would unfairly be put to death in Texas, the older man got a puzzled look and replied, “And how does that affect your life?” For anyone who’s read the gospels, they know how important that question is.
It’s a question that hits him hard in the nose when his former secretary doesn’t seem too torn up by his leaving. She says:
“For eleven years I’ve fetched your dry cleaning and coffee, run your personal errands, paid your personal bills, shopped for gifts for your wife and child and clients, lied to clients for you . . . Did you care about me? About my life? You never once asked about my life. Do you know I have a handicapped child and that’s the only reason I’ve put up with you for all these years? Because I needed the money? You didn’t know and you didn’t care. Did you care when Mr. Walker got fired? No. Like every other lawyer here, you care only about yourself.”
The ending is not as strong as the rest, I thought, but, heh–it’s a first novel. And quite a good one at that. I look forward to more novels from Gimenez.
Reading it makes me very thankful for those who are working to bridge the gap between haves and have nots, and it makes me grateful for those lawyers I know who still understand that the color of law is not green. They are, indeed, salt and light in the world.
Such stirring in hearts is needed as guideposts to keep us open to both the hope and range of ministry. I am still learning—yet so enthused—to think of ways to bridge the gaps. I think one thing stands out in the Word and in the Work we possess: God shows up defending the underdog…..every time.
Mike - I think you’re missing some info in your 9th paragraph. It sounds like a great read! Mike Cope is the new Oprah Winfrey!
You haven’t led me wrong yet. I’ll pick it up. After dusting off my copy of “Mockingbird.”
Thanks for finishing that sentence! BTW - I’m making a BIG decision in the next day or two & this piece seems very timely for me! Thanks!
I grapple with these ideas–ministry and service vs. personal satisfaction–especially concerning my husband’s career (he is a doctor). On the one hand, I consider all of the good that can come of it-the opportunity to minister to a great deal of the underserved population of Houston (or wherever we might end up). On the other hand, I grew up without very much, and enjoy the idea of having a comfortable house, and money for my not-yet-existing children’s college education (and by comfortable, I don’t mean a mansion or anything like that).
I’ll read this, because I adore Atticus Finch, and this sounds like such a good read. It also reminds me of Grisham’s “Street Lawyer.”
I just left private law practice for the academy and poverty law, and I just gave a lecture to my students before Thanksgiving about the near-zero sum analysis between Security and Autonomy, Time and Money and Debt versus Lifestyle. All wrapped up in there is doing good versus doing well. Most law students aren’t given stark decisions but are fed the lie that they “can have it all.” No one can have it all; it’s not the way God created the world.
Having a daughter named Scout and being an Alabama lawyer, I do have to ask how you think this compares to To Kill A Mockingbird. Forgive me for being a little sensitive, but are your only comparisons drawn from a white lawyer who stands beside a black client? Please expand on your comparison and compliment. Only because I think that Lee’s book is the best American work of fiction do I bristle when a new novel gets that sort of treatment.
Just added it to my wish list. And you should check out Blood Done Sign My Name by Timothy B. Tyson sometime soon.
JRB -
It’s nowhere near the league of To Kill a Mockingbird. Is that what you thought I was saying?
Sorry. No. It’s a book that has another book as a kind of “text.” The Color of Law has this quote in the beginning: “Scout, simply by the nature of the work, every lawyer gets at least one case in his lifetime that affects him personally. This one’s mine, I guess.” And it ends with these words (which spoils nothing of the plot): “Scott had begun reading a new bedtime book to the girls: To Kill a Mockingbird. They loved Boo Radley.”
I think it would be interesting because it’s a piece of popular fiction that is pointing back to the profound truth of a great novel (a novel which I ask my students in “The Life and Teachings of Jesus” to read for extra credit).
What a compliment it would be to Gimenez if young readers finished his book, which they’d picked up in the airport, and went to the library afterward to find Harper Lee!
I agree, Mike. I didn’t think that you were saying that this book is “as good” as Mockingbird. I just wanted to flesh out what you were saying more clearly. Mockingbird is like a sacred text for me, so I wanted to dig a little more deeply into your analysis.
Thanks, although I think the girls (mine at least) would be scared of Boo Radley at first……
That’s kind of the point, I think.
Another tip of the hat to Harper Lee is that one of the little girls is named Boo.
I need to go back and re-read TKAM — and then might pick this one up. Living near Highland Park and attending church there, this sounds very intriguing.
What lawyers can be Christians? Next you’ll be implying Christians can be Democrats too. such heresy. (insert sarcasm here.) I’ll add this book to my Christmas List
Oh, man. I’d love to tell you about some lawyers I know — some right here in my own church family — who are salt and light in their families, their practices, their little leagues, etc.
You know you’re living if you never have to leave the Park Cities - school, work, shopping, socializing, etc. For the life of me I can’t imagine someone wanting to raise children in Highland Park - but to each their own. Thanks Mike.
Thanks for the direction here, Mike. I’ll read it. Sounds from your quotes like he nails my beloved city!
I’ve read “Mockingbird” twice in the past three years. I’m thinking about making it an every-other-year read from this point on. It gets better every time.
Went to the library and checked out “Color” this afternoon. Looking forward to it.
You’re not a Monroeville boy, are you, JRB? (I’m an Opp boy.)
It sounds like an interesting read. I also thought of John Grisham’s
“The Street Lawyer.” Thanks.
Friends - I’m sorry that I’ve forgotten to check “moderated comments” for the past month or two. There were lots of comments that didn’t get through that I’ve now approved. I guess there is something in the comment (like “sex” or a hyperlink) that makes wordpress catch it. After looking at some of the pornographic things that it did catch — not by readers, obviously! — I’m thankful for the filter.
Matt, no, I was born in north Alabama, raised in Mississippi, educated in Arkansas and Tennessee, married a Tennessee girl, practiced law in Mississippi and now am back in the homeland, closer to Opp than Monroeville. I’m planning on a pilgrimage as soon as possible, though. I have a little girl named Scout and am not a very bad shot, except that I’d have to leave my glasses on.
I know I’m late in this conversation, but I wanted to offer something for any young or aspiring lawyers out there - or people who know/love people who meet that description:
I’m no Atticus Finch, and probably not even a Scott Finney - just a small town attorney who earns a living for his family through a modest civil litigation practice - but I have faced off against lawyers who are strikingly similar to the ones that Giminez describes, and I’ve dealt with clients and opposing parties who come from a Park Cities-type culture. In that sense, I’ve been there.
Out of those experiences, and others, I have done some writing on the subject of discipleship in lawyering, particularly in the context of civil lawsuits, which is my area of focus. Most of the writing is linked here.
If you’re interested in one lawyer’s perspective of what it means to do “good” in one particular type of legal practice, and if you’re willing to endure my occasionally overly dense prose, you’re welcome to drop by.
You just sold another book on Amazon.com BTW, I have read
To KIll a Mockingbird and seen the movie at least a million times….
“There were definite marks on her gullett”…I love almost every line.
“Don’t say hey to me you ugly girl…say goodafternoon Miss DuBose”
Yikes…I better quit or I’ll be back in therapy…
Ms. Jenna Louise, meet Mr. Arthur Radley….
Just finished “The Color of Law” last night. Great and easy read! Thanks for the recommendation.
And I meant to add — “Where - as.
Had already read he Color of Law–should have snapped to Atticus before I did as had read TKAM when it came out, before going to law school. Never figured out why Harper Lee never published anything else after that classic.
What is the author of The Color of Law’s real name? I can’t find anyone by the name given on the State Bar of Texas Web site’s lawyer locator. Nobody could fake some of his background in this novel, and lawyers like that, with courage, are too hard to find when you really need one in real life.
Google is the best search engine
Thanks for making this site