How to Write a Socially Conscious Legal Thriller

I grew up in an era when television had three networks and four local stations, only one of which was in “living color.” A long-time running series was Perry Mason—the real one, not the more recent version that had little to do with Earl Stanley Gardner’s original character. Each week, Perry would solve mysteries by eviscerating the villain on cross-examination. Compelling television, but not what inspired me to become an attorney and later a writer of legal drama. No, my inspiration came from a much shorter-lived series called The Defenders, starring E.G. Marshall and Robert Reed (later the father on The Brady Bunch) as father-and-son defense attorneys who took on cases involving neo-Nazi’s, abortion, conscientious objectors, pornography, civil rights, and the right to die, and featured in bit parts fledgling actors Dustin Hoffman, Dennis Hopper, William Shatner, and Carroll O’Connor.

(A Checklist for Writing Psychological Thrillers.)

Like the mostly forgotten The Defenders, many classic legal thrillers and dramas have addressed social issues. Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird—decidedly in part a legal thriller—confronts issues of racism, justice, and morality in the segregated South. John Grisham’s A Time to Kill examines the morality of vigilantism and retribution in the face of racial intolerance. Scott Turow’s The Last Trial takes on the power of Big Pharma. The classic play Inherit the Wind tackles the dispute between evolution and creationism.

Writing about hot-button issues can be fraught. An issue that seems current can quickly become passé (remember EFTs and the Metaverse? If not, point made). A book that preaches one side or the other can become a tedious political rant. Characters who don’t have a nuanced view of the issues end up flat and lifeless. How to avoid this? Here are a few tips to write a vibrant, yet socially conscious legal thriller that keeps the pages turning.

Remember that old rule, “Never talk about politics or religion in polite company?” Break it. 

Political and religious issues not only often have long shelf lives, but they also automatically create tension. Some social issues (unfortunately) seem timeless. Inherit the Wind, a 1955 play, was based on a criminal prosecution that had occurred 30 years earlier, the so-called “Scopes Monkey Trial,” in which a high school teacher was convicted of teaching evolution. Of course, the religious-scientific debate about what teachers can convey to students rages in contemporary form—and provides fertile ground for writers of legal thrillers and drama.

My forthcoming novel The Out-of-Town Lawyer concerns an issue that has simmered, and often boiled over, for decades, namely a woman’s right to control her own body. The book is not about abortion rights but rather tells the story of a Destiny Grace Harper, a young woman who became pregnant with identical twins. The twins suffered from a rare condition treatable by a minimally invasive in-utero procedure. Without the procedure, the twins would likely die or at best suffer serious disabilities. After Harper refused to have the procedure on religious grounds, the state tried to intervene and obtain a court order forcing her to have the procedure. She fled, the twins died at birth, and now she’s charged with capital murder. 

The concept arose out of true-life prosecutions of pregnant woman for harming the unborn. In one prominent case, a pregnant woman who was shot in the abdomen, causing the loss of the baby, was indicted for manslaughter because she supposedly provoked a fight. The shooter wasn’t indicted because she was supposedly only “standing her ground.”

Don’t preach but rather embrace ambiguity. 

Dramatic ambiguity makes for good legal fiction. A case in point: In John Grisham’s A Time to Kill, Carl Lee Hailey, a Black man despairing of a racist judicial system, kills his young daughter’s rapists and is charged with capital murder. While perhaps not lawful, Hailey’s motivations at first blush seem clearly just. Yet there’s a twist—he committed the killings without even giving the justice system, flawed as it was, a chance. Should he at least have let the system take its course? Did his failure to do so make him truly a murderer? 

Likewise, in The Out-of-Town Lawyer, Attorney Elvis Henderson, who travels around the country in a van seeking justice, returns to his childhood home in small-town Alabama to defend Destiny Grace Harper. He’s staunchly pro-choice. And yet he has his doubts about the morality of his client’s decision, because the twins suffered needlessly.

Check out Robert Rotstein’s The Out-of-Town Lawyer here:

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Make sure your characters are more than their politics or religion. 

Some of the nicest people I’ve met have political and social views diametrically opposed to mine. People aren’t their politics, and if you make your characters nothing more than that, they’ll end up one dimensional. 

Ever since Gregory Peck portrayed Atticus Finch in the movie version of To Kill A Mockingbird, the character has been lionized as the perfect, flawless lawyer, dedicated to justice. Yet as law professor Monroe Freedman points out, the Atticus Finch of the novel has significant flaws. He willingly participates in a segregated society; he insists that a racist bigot bent on lynching an innocent man largely possesses human decency; and he agrees to defend the wrongfully accused Tom Robinson only after a court orders him to do so. 

These flaws in the literary Atticus enrich the novel and create tension for the defense attorney—forced into a case he doesn’t really want to handle, the not-truly-perfect Atticus Finch has depth and weaknesses that are often overlooked but that create dramatic tension.

Consider the characters in the courtroom other than the lawyers and client. 

In most legal thrillers, an attorney or the client plays the protagonist. It doesn’t have to be so, especially in legal thrillers involving controversial social issues. The classic play and motion picture 12 Angry Men, makes the jury the protagonist, as does my 2025 forthcoming novel A True Verdict—especially fitting for stories that explore racism, class, and justice in America. 

Other possible point-of-view characters are the judge, the judge’s law clerk, or even the bailiff or court reporter, who often to a surprising extent can influence the outcome of a trial. In The Out-of-Town Lawyer, Elvis Henderson’s brilliant paralegal, Margaret Booth—a transgender woman who’s put herself in jeopardy to help save her client’s life—plays a prominent role in the story’s outcome.

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The American adversarial justice system provides abundant dramatic grist for the novelist. In actual law cases, dramatic conflict automatically exists. Opposing parties put forth different versions of the truth and go into battle with their protectors (aka their lawyers) by their sides. Legal thrillers can address the key issues of our time—edifying while keeping the pages turning.

A caveat. Authors of socially aware legal thrillers can stir up controversy, often for themselves. As one reviewer—who liked the book very much—said, “Well, the author has certainly written a book that will ruffle some feathers and cause some conversation (and consternation)!” My reaction? I must’ve done something right.

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