Description
In this memoir, Graham relates the story of his five years as a young associate at a law firm and the pro bono murder case that changed his view of the world. Graham worked to free Mario Rocha, who was wrongly convicted of murder at 16 and sentenced to life without parole. Graham realized that he had started at the firm to make money, but after taking the case, reevaluated his future as a corporate lawyer. He tells of the nun who persuaded the firm to take the case and his work with the rest of the team to free Rocha, with whom he developed a friendship and who was eventually released. Annotation ©2010 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
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The story—part memoir, part hard-hitting expose—of a first-year law associate negotiating the arduous path through a system designed to break those who enter it before it makes them. Landing a job at a prestigious L.A. law firm, complete with a six figure income, signaled the beginning of the good life for Ian Graham. But the harsh reality of life as an associate quickly became evident. The work was grueling and boring, the days were impossibly long, and Graham’s main goal was to rack up billable hours. But when he took an unpaid pro bono case to escape the drudgery, Graham found the meaning in his work that he’d been looking for. As he worked to free Mario Rocha, a gifted young Latino who had been wrongly convicted at 16 and sentenced to life without parole, the shocking contrast between the quest for money and power and Mario’s desperate struggle for freedom led Graham to look long and hard at his future as a corporate lawyer. Clear-eyed and moving, written with the drama and speed of a John Grisham novel and the personal appeal of Scott Turow’s account of his law school years, Unbillable Hours is an arresting personal story with implications for all of us.
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