The Bond A Novel

Adam Gross, philosopher-cum-lawyer, teaches at an Ivy League law school in New York. Good looking, cultivated, 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, 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 he 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 by acclaimed Columbia Professor of Law, George Fletcher, is at one and the same time a tale of university life and a primer for anyone wanting to understand what studying law is really like. Provocative, challenging, shocking and amusing, this novel reveals what studying law is really like. "The Bond" promises to change forever the way law students (and their teachers) think about the law.

George Fletcher is one of the best known law professors in the US.