第一次Clay和Rebecca爸妈吃饭时的情景：Bennett arrived in a rush, full of bogus apologies for being late. He slapped Clay on the back as if they were fraternity brothers, and kissed his girls on the cheeks.
"How's the Governor?" Barb asked, loud enough for the diners across the room to hear.
还有Jonah，"Can I bring a friend?" "Absolutely not." Jonah went nowhere without the girl-of-the-week. 还有Rodney: In his shirt pocket he had brand-new business cards, the ink barely dry, delivered fresh that morning from an overnight printing firm, declaring him to be the Chief Paralegal of the Law Offices of J. Clay Carter. Chief Paralegal, as if the firm had an entire division of paralegals under his control.
Clay第一次见到Patton French时: At $300 million a year in fees, it was hard to picture Patton Frenchas an underdog. But he was playing to the crowd. Clay glanced around and wondered, not for the firsttime, if he was the only sane one there. Were these people so blinded by the money that they honestlybelieved themselves to be defenders of the poor and the sick? Most of them owned jets!
Five years in OPD had certainly sheltered Clay from many aspects of modern-day lawyering. He had read about mass torts but had no idea its practitioners were such an organized and specialized group. They didn't seem to be exceptionally bright. Their strategies centered around gathering the cases and settling them, not real trial work.

Who could get by these days on just $50 million? The mob exploded in laughter, as if Clay had just hit the funniest punch line ever. More people gathered around, all men, all inching toward this strikingblonde who looked vaguely familiar. Perhaps they didn't recognize her in full color with her clothes on.

前前后后用了很久。甚至一开始看到四分之一的时候以为作者把所有真相都写出来了，顿觉无趣，就看The Firm去了，后来又翻开来看，发现其实故事还有。Clay一开始是个正直的人，在那么突然那么巨大的一笔钱的冲击下，做了一个进取者该做的事情罢了。你说他该什么时候停下来呢？第一次的Tarvan之后，收了自己15million？还是Dyloft之后， 有了110million之后就跑去carribean和父亲一起捕鱼度日？又或者是打个Skinny Ben输了后，警觉了，不玩了？还是Hanna Cement后，看到那么多layoff，那么民怨沸腾？还是Maxatil知道Marooney输了之后？很多很多的节点，其实都有选择的机会。但是Clay因为年轻也好，对送上门来的机会无法置之不理也好，因为想做点成绩给Van Horns看也好，因为贪婪也好，他没有停。在Dyloft的高点后，故事就如同红楼梦一样，就是一个接着一个的失败了。但是最后比起家破人亡，Clay只是宣布破产，讲出事实，然后离开。Chapter 11还是具有保护作用的。
最后，至少他的Rebecca回来了。至少他已经看过了一世浮华。至少他还有当初的朋友向他伸出了援助之手。你说到底是喜是悲呢？都不一定。