The Tenant Lawyer

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Overview

Mark Langley is an idealistic 32-year old lawyer who gets fired from one of Boston's most prestigious law firms after sabotaging a corporate client's defense of a sexual harassment lawsuit. Now a pariah in the Boston legal community, he takes a job as a legal services lawyer representing tenants in eviction cases in his blue-collar hometown of Worcester, Massachusetts.

Soon Mark gets pulled into two high-stakes legal battles. In one, he fights to keep a single mother and her ...

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More About This Book

Overview

Mark Langley is an idealistic 32-year old lawyer who gets fired from one of Boston's most prestigious law firms after sabotaging a corporate client's defense of a sexual harassment lawsuit. Now a pariah in the Boston legal community, he takes a job as a legal services lawyer representing tenants in eviction cases in his blue-collar hometown of Worcester, Massachusetts.

Soon Mark gets pulled into two high-stakes legal battles. In one, he fights to keep a single mother and her teenage son from being evicted from a large public housing complex. In the other, he challenges a plan to divert federal funds away from the low-income community and into the pockets of private developers, leading him to go head-to-head against his old firm.

With a riveting plot and unforgettable characters, The Tenant Lawyer chronicles the harsh realities of urban justice and a young lawyer's complicated relationship with his hometown.

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Editorial Reviews

Kirkus Reviews
A young attorney struggles to humanize the law--and himself--in this quietly absorbing legal tale. Fired from his high-powered Boston law firm for an unseemly attack of conscience, 32-year-old Mark Langley has descended to the lowest rung of the lawyering trade as a legal services attorney doing eviction cases in his blue-collar hometown of Worcester, Mass. In the assembly-line proceedings of Housing Court, there's little he can do for his impoverished clients--many of them tenants in the town's bleak housing projects--except postpone the day they'll be evicted. Then a case comes along with a mixture of technicalities and pathos that grabs his attention: a single mom faces eviction from public housing because her son was arrested on drug charges; a guilty verdict would cause her other son to lose his college scholarship. While he pursues a long-shot trial in the case, Mark also squares off against the haughty mandarins in his old firm to challenge the corrupt diversion of anti-poverty funds to a well-connected developer. In his first novel, Dinnocenzo, himself an attorney with legal-services experience, ventures into John Grisham territory--a callow, idealistic lawyer battles the establishment--but with less histrionics and more social insight. Poverty, chaos and infuriating regulations precipitate one crisis after another in the lives of his underclass strivers. The seemingly low-stakes Housing Court becomes an arena of tense legal strategizing and real drama, where verdicts destroy families. Writing in a limpid, nuanced prose, Dinnocenzo crafts sharp but subtle portraits of his characters and their agonizing dilemmas. Mark in particular is a flawed but appealing hero plagued by self-doubt and courtroom stage fright. He's torn between glittering yuppie Boston and dilapidated Worcester as he obsessively sharpens his arguments in pursuit of justice for people who can't afford it otherwise. A notable debut that infuses an engrossing legal procedural with deep empathy.
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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9781462004775
  • Publisher: iUniverse, Incorporated
  • Publication date: 11/18/2011
  • Pages: 264
  • Product dimensions: 5.50 (w) x 8.50 (h) x 0.55 (d)

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Sort by: Showing 1 Customer Review

  • Posted January 16, 2012

    Excellent Debut!

    Debut author Eric Dinnocenzo weaves an engaging story, deftly moving the plot around two central cases handled by main character Mark Langley, a legal services attorney from Worcester, Massacusetts. The story is paced nicely and Dinnocenzo shows a knack for dialogue. Big recommendation, especially for anyone who has ever worked for legal services.

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