The Firm
The Firm's primary focus is on Mitch McDeere, who graduated third in his class at
Harward Law School. Mitch has recently married his girlfriend from college, Abby,
his brother Ray is serving a prison term, and his other brother, Rusty, died in
Vietnam.
Mitch has offers from law firms in New York and Chicago but eventually decides
to join Bendini, Lambert and Locke, a small tax law firm based in Memphis. The
firm seduces him by offering him a large salary and a large house, as well as
paying off his student loans. Soon after he joins, his new colleagues help him study
and pass his bar exam..
Two of Mitch's colleagues die in a scuba diving accident in the Cayman Islands the
week he starts at the firm; Mitch finds the deaths unsettling, but ignores it to work
hard, faced with the prospect of becoming a partner after only a few years. Then,
an FBI agent, Wayne Tarrance, confronts Mitch, and he learns gradually that the
firm is actually part of the white collar operations of the Morolto crime family of
Chicago. For years, the Moroltos have lured new lawyers from poor backgrounds
into the firm with promises of wealth and security. By the time a lawyer is aware of
the the firm's actual operations, he cannot leave. No lawyer has actually escaped
the firm alive, as the death of his two colleagues makes him so aware. Mitch learns
that his house, office and car are bugged. He and Abby are also routinely followed,
making his meetings with the FBI dangerous. Pressure from both the firm and the
FBI, who warns him he will regret not cooperating later on, if he chooses to ignore
the problem, force Mitch to make a decision quickly.
The rainmaker
[…]Rudy already has one case, a case of insurance bad faith, which he
passionately believes in. He represents a poor family, Dot and Buddy Black whom
he met through a class visit to a community centre. The case could be worth
several million dollars in damages, but his personal life is falling to pieces and he
is about to declare himself bankrupt. When his employer is raided by the police
and the FBI, he and Deck set up in practice themselves and file suit on behalf of
the Blacks, whose son Donny Ray is dying of leukemia but almost certainly could
have been saved with a bone marrow transplant since he has an identical twin
brother, a fact which would make the procedure virtually certain to work due to
the perfect genetic match. The procedure should be covered by their insurance
company, Great Benefit Life Insurance.
Before the trial commences, the Blacks' son dies. The case goes to trial and Rudy
uncovers a scheme Great Benefit ran throughout 1991 to deny every insurance
claim submitted, regardless of validity. Great Benefit was playing on the odds that
the insured would not consult an attorney (which Dot Black didn't until it was too
late for Donny Ray). A former employee of Great Benefit testifies that the scheme
generated an extra $40 million in revenue for the company.
The runaway jury
Widow Celeste Wood is suing a tobacco company for sending her husband to an
early grave. She hires a lawyer named Mr. Rohr, who has had mixed results in
court cases before, never one this big. The judge in the case is found out to be
Judge Harkin, who is about to have the largest case he has ever seen in his
courtroom.
On the defence are the tobacco companies. In particular a tobacco company
known as Pynex and its head, Mr. Jankin. It is part of a group known as the Big
Four, a small group of very powerful and influential cigarette companies that has
joined forces to defend their names. Together, they have formed "The Fund" - a
seemingly bottomless well of money intended to be used in the cases such as this.
They hire Rankin Fitch - an expert who has helped to "win" cases like this before.
He is virtually unknown to everyone else in the world, except for the rich
companies. He does not get directly involved in courtroom, but prefers to remain
hidden and let Mr. Cable, another lawyer take care of the talking.
The king of torts
Clay Carter is a public defender, dreaming of one day
joining a big law firm. Reluctantly, he takes on the
case of Tequila Watson, a man accused of a random
street killing. Clay assumes that it is just another D.C.
murder.
Clay soon learns of a pharmaceutical conspiracy, with
the help of the mysterious Max Pace, and finds
himself landing a huge settlement. Soon Clay finds
himself being one of the legal professions biggest tort
lawyers. Unfortunately, this sudden fame isn't without
a price.
The insider
This is the true story of Jeffrey Wigand (Russell
Crowe), a man who signed a confidentiality
agreement before getting fired from a big tobacco
company. Hotshot *60 minutes* producer Bergman
(Al Pacino) asks Wigand to decipher some technical
documents, and soon realizes there's a bigger story
hiding inside Wigand. On top of that, Wigand is
recruited to testify in Mississippi for a case that
claims cigarettes *are* addictive. The *60 minutes*
piece will eventually be pulled because of corporate
pressure. Wigand deals with his personal dilemma,
and Bergman battles the corporation.
Erin Brockovich
Erin Brockovich is an unemployed single mother of three who, after
losing a personal injury lawsuit against a doctor in a car accident she was
in, asks her lawyer, Edward L. Masry, if he can find her a job in
compensation for the loss. Ed gives her work as a file clerk in his office,
and she runs across some files on a pro bono case involving real-estate
and medical records against Pacific Gas and Electric Company.
Erin begins digging into the particulars of the case, convinced that the
facts simply do not add up, and persuades Ed to allow her further research.
After investigation, she discovers a systematic cover-up of the industrial
poisoning (Hexavalent Chromium) of the town of Hinkley's water supply
that threatens the health of an entire community. She finds that PG&E is
responsible for the extensive illnesses residents of Hinkley have been
diagnosed with and fights to bring the company to justice.
Silkwood
Silkwood is a 1983, Oscar-nominated film
which dramatizes the story of Karen
Silkwood, who died under suspicious
circumstances while investigating alleged
wrongdoing at the Kerr-McGee plutonium
plant where she worked
A civil action
Jan Schlichtmann (John Travolta) is a successful lawyer who has started
his own practice. Early legal victories have made him wealthy and one of
Boston's most eligible bachelors. All of this begins to collapse after Jan
begins activity on one of his firm's cases, a lawsuit on behalf of the
parents of deceased children in a small industrial town against the
companies they believe to have polluted their water. The pollutant in
question is trichloroethylene, an industrial solvent, and it appears to have
caused fatal cases of leukemia and cancer, as well as a wide variety of
other health problems, among the citizens of the town.
Jan believes that this case will be easily won, resulting in a fortune for him
and the families and prestige for his firm. However, the huge expenses in
both time and money incurred in the class action suit soon begin to take
their toll on his finances, ambitions, and career.
Class action
The story is about a lawsuit concerning injuries caused by a defective
automobile. The suit takes on a personal dimension because the injured
plaintiff's attorney (Hackman) is the father of the automobile manufacturer's
attorney (Mastrantonio). The central premise of the film is roughly
analogous to the controversy surrounding the Ford Pinto.
The auto manufacturer in the film also utilizes a "bean-counting" approach
to risk management, whereby the projections of actuaries for probable
deaths and injured car-owners is weighed against the cost of re-tooling and
re-manufacturing the car without the defect (exploding gas tanks) with the
resulting decision to keep the car as-is to positively benefit short term
profitability.
The film makes remarks concerning challenges brought about by
"dumping" by Japanese car makers (temporarily selling below cost to grab
market share, then raising prices exorbitantly after driving competition out
of business), and the increased need to cut costs to keep pace with Asian car
makers (Korea, Japan, China, etc.) that don't pay anywhere near the union
wages of Detroit's auto workers.