The Bond: A Novel

Adam Gross, philosopher-cum-lawyer, teaches at an Ivy League law school in New York. Good looking, cultivated, and bohemian, he was once considered the rising star of his faculty, but that was a decade ago and times have changed. Doing the job he always wanted, shaping eager young minds and showing them what it takes to be a lawyer, Adam has to face the truth that his style is no longer what the students pay for, and his Dean is getting worried about the rising number of complaints. It doesn't help that Adam is about to start sleeping with the Dean's wife. Faced with a struggle for survival, sandwiched between headstrong students and colleagues eager to see him cut down to size, Adam knows no other course than to keep teaching law as he believes it must be taught, as a global, complex, and multi-faceted phenomenon in which American law is just one part of the picture. In a world in which the old certainties have been swept away, in which torture happens on our doorstep, and inequalities multiply, more than ever Adam wants his students to understand that they hold the key to a better, more just, future. This novel is a tale of university life and a primer for anyone wanting to understand what the study of law is really like. Provocative, challenging, shocking, and amusing, The Bond promises to change forever the way law students (and their teachers) think about the law. The author, George P. Fletcher, is the Cardozo Professor of Jurisprudence at Columbia University.