The street lawyer

PENGUIN ACTIVE READING Teacher Support Programme

Teacher’s notes

LEVEL 4

The Street Lawyer
John Grisham
Chapter 3: Michael drives his expensive car to a small law firm to see Mordecai Green, a lawyer who helps the homeless. They talk about Mister and Michael learns that a company called RiverOaks, whose lawyers are Drake & Sweeney, owns the warehouse where he lived. Green tells him theeviction was illegal because Mister was a tenant and not a squatter. They exchange phone numbers. Chapter 4: Back in his expensive office, Michael finds his work does not make sense anymore. He searches for information on RiverOaks, but he gets very little because it is a private company. Their lawyer is partner Braden Chance, who works in real estate. Michael goes to his office, asks if Misterwas a squatter and requests the eviction file. Chance refuses. Later, he suggests to Claire they have a vacation but, as she cannot leave work, he visits his parents in Memphis. His father does not like the idea of Michael leaving the firm to work for the homeless. Chapter 5: Back home, he finds Claire is away for a few days. Mordecai phones him to ask for help at a shelter for the homeless andMichael agrees. It is so cold and there are so many people that the volunteers are not enough. He sees the Burtons: a mother and her three young children sleeping. The next day he does some shopping for that family but he does not see them. Then he hears on TV that they have all died. They were asleep in a car with its engine running and the poisoned air killed them. Chapter 6: Michael and Mordecaigo to the hospital morgue. They see the bodies. Michael is determined not to let that happen again and pays for the funeral. After that, there is a march to Capitol Hill. Mordecai gives a moving speech about the last night of the Burton family. Then he offers Michael a job at the law center for much less than his salary. Michael tells Claire he has accepted. She then visits a divorce lawyer and heleaves the apartment. Chapter 7: On Michael’s last day at the office, he discovers somebody has left him some hints to help him find more information about the people evicted by the law firm. Hector Palma, Chance’s legal assistant, has left two keys: one to Chance’s door and the other to the file drawer. Michael will take the RiverOaks file, photocopy it at the 14th Street Law Center and return itin around an hour. But just as he is leaving Drake & Sweeney’s with the file he has a car accident and ends up in the hospital. Chapter 8: Michael does not stay in hospital for long. He has to find a new apartment and recover the file from the wreck of his car. He meets Hector at a bar and Hector
The Street Lawyer - Teacher’s notes  of 3

Summary
Michael Brock is a wealthy and successfullawyer in Washington DC, but one day a homeless old man walks into the office armed. The old man is shot by the police, and Michael soon realizes that his law firm, Drake & Sweeney, had made the old man homeless. With his marriage breaking up, Michael decides that he can no longer work for the law firm. He meets Mordecai Green, who runs a law firm which helps the homeless, and decides to join him. Hesteals a file from Drake & Sweeney’s which proves that the company evicted the old man and other tenants. Michael leaves his wife and begins work in a shelter for the homeless. When the police arrest Michael for stealing the file, Mordecai Green defends him. An agreement is reached and Michael starts a new life. Chapter 1: An old black man gets into the meeting room at Drake & Sweeney, animportant law firm employing eight hundred lawyers. “Mister” threatens Michael and his eight colleagues with a gun and sticks of dynamite. He has been evicted and is homeless and hungry. After telling the boss, Arthur Jacobs, to order soup with bread, he asks what the lawyers have eaten and how much they earn. He keeps asking who did the eviction. When the soup arrives, a policeman opens the door and...