In 1993, after selling 1.5 million copies, it was adapted into a film of the same name starring Tom Cruise, Gene Hackman and Jeanne Tripplehorn.

Mitch is married to his high-school sweetheart, Abby McDeere, an elementary school teacher who also attended Western Kentucky University.

Mitch is assigned to partner Avery Tolar, the firm's "bad boy," but a highly accomplished attorney.

Two of Mitch's colleagues, Marty Kozinski and Joe Hodge, die in a scuba diving accident in the Cayman Islands a few days before he starts at the firm.

While Mitch is in Washington, D.C., on business, Tarrance approaches him again, this time alongside FBI Director F. Denton Voyles.

Although Mitch's work so far has been legitimate, the partners and senior associates are deeply immersed in a massive tax fraud and money laundering operation that accounts for as much as 75 percent of the firm's business.

Kozinski and Hodge were actually in contact with the FBI at the time of their murders, leading Voyles to take personal charge of the investigation.

The attorney-client privilege in most U.S. states, including Tennessee,[1] does not apply to situations when a lawyer knows that a crime is taking place.

However, they secretly decide to flee after turning over enough evidence to topple the firm, since they do not completely trust the FBI to protect them.

Mitch is certain those files will provide enough evidence for a massive RICO indictment that will bring down the firm and cripple the Morolto family.

Once Mitch learns of the leak, he flees to Panama City Beach, Florida with his brother and wife with the Moroltos and FBI chasing them.

[4] When he sent the draft to his agent, bootleg copies were made and the story was shopped around Hollywood without Grisham’s knowledge and purchased by Paramount Pictures for $600,000.

[5] Marilyn Stasio of The New York Times wrote that "Mr. Grisham, a criminal defense attorney, writes with such relish about the firm's devious legal practices that his novel might be taken as a how-to manual for ambitious tax-law students.

"[6] The success of the novel and the 1993 film led to a 2012 television show set ten years after the events of the original story and ended up running for one season.

In the film, Mitch makes a deal with the FBI for his brother's release along with large sums of money in exchange for information about his firm's clients.