Aahana Swrup
‘The Rainmaker’ invites the audience along for thrilling misadventures of the legal variety. The legal drama show centers around one fresh-faced law student who is about to fulfill his dreams of becoming a lawyer. He has a bright future ahead of him, having landed a job as an associate at the high-profile law firm Tinley Britt. However, his employment is short-lived as he gets fired on his first day at the job. As a result, with nowhere else to turn, Rudy is compelled to turn to J. Lyman Stone and Associates, a questionable law firm that practices out of an office that was clearly a taco shop in a past life. These two firms form crucial foundations for the world-building in the show, becoming different anchors in the protagonist’s professional career. Naturally, their possible roots in reality become an element worth exploring.
Tinley Britt is a Fictional Element in a David vs. Goliath Story
Since ‘The Rainmaker’ is primarily a fictitious story, most of its narrative elements also retain fictional origins. As a result, Tinley Britt (otherwise known as Tinley Britt Crawford Mise and St. John) becomes another narrative tool also confined within the boundaries of the story. The firm itself holds origins in John Grisham’s eponymous 1995 novel, where it first made an appearance. In the book, the company appears as a megacorporation that buys out the firm that Rudy initially joins straight out of law school. Later, they return to the narrative as the central antagonists, on the opposite side of the young lawyer’s first big case regarding an insurance bad-faith case. The establishment’s on-screen appearance in the TV adaptation diverges in some ways from this portrayal.
For one, the case fought between Rudy and the seasoned lawyers of Tinley Britt, including Leo F. Drummond, doesn’t focus on insurance fraud. Instead, it deals with the prevalence of medical malpractice and the convenient sweeping of it under the rug, thanks to lucrative legal help. Additionally, there’s also an added element of a possible murder in the play. Therefore, rather than creating socio-political commentary about the insurance industry, the show focuses on underlining realism through a David vs. Goliath storyline. While the specifics of this narrative, and thus the firm itself, hold no direct parallels in reality, it adds authenticity to the legal drama series.
The J. Lyman Stone and Associates Isn’t Real
J. Lyman Stone and Associates also retain a fictional origin in John Grisham’s work, similar to the other narrative elements in the show. However, that doesn’t mean there are no other possible connections behind the shady law firm. The practice itself, helmed by Jocelyn “Bruiser” Stone, centers on personal injury cases wherein the employees are eager to make clients out of the recently injured. This practice in itself is common enough in the real world to remain realistic. Nonetheless, the firm finds a more grounded real-life parallel through its offbeat office. In the show, J. Lyman Stone and Associates operates out of a building that can be visibly identified as an old taco restaurant.
As bizarre as it seems, this phenomenon has a real-life counterpart. In Chicago, there is a law firm branch that sports identifiable elements of an old Taco Bell. The building itself has Spanish Colonial exteriors with a red slate tile roof reminiscent of old Taco Bell locations. Still, there’s little evidence that suggests that this firm was ever directly equipped as an inspiration for the business model of J. Lyman Stone and Associates. Therefore, it seems that while the fictional law firm retains similarities to its literary counterpart, it mines evident inspiration from the real-life Chicago-based law firm, even if only for its unique office location.
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