Legal thrillers use the law as their battlefield. Lawyers, judges, defendants, and witnesses navigate trials, corruption, and dangerous cases where losing means more than a verdict. The courtroom becomes a stage for confrontation, and legal procedure creates its own built-in tension: cross-examinations, surprise witnesses, ticking deadlines, and the adversarial clash between prosecution and defense.
Legal thrillers consistently perform well commercially and demonstrate how to turn procedural detail into riveting narrative. If you can make a courtroom scene as gripping as a chase sequence, you've mastered a rare skill. The genre also provides a built-in structure (the case) that naturally creates tension and resolution.
Grisham's debut: a father kills his daughter's rapists, and the trial forces an entire community to confront its moral foundations.
A prosecutor charged with murder, where the legal system's machinery turns against one of its own.
A defense attorney working from his car who takes a case that puts his life in danger.
Write a cross-examination scene. A lawyer is questioning a witness who's hiding something. The lawyer knows the truth but can't say it directly; they must lead the witness into contradicting themselves. The tension should come entirely from questions and answers.