While The Burden of Proof maintains the interest in law demonstrated in Turow's two earlier works, the novel's primary emphasis is on the troubled relationships within the Stern family and the quest of Sandy Stern for self-definition following the mysterious suicide of his wife Clara after thirtyone years of marriage. During the course of the novel, Stern must come to grips with the "imponderable duties darkly rooted in the hard soil of [his] own sense of filial and professional obligation." Stern must also learn to venture out of the neatly ordered world he had created for himself as he explores the reason for his wife's suicide and rethink some of the assumptions of his own life.

The novel also examines, as Presumed Innocent did to a lesser extent, the assimilation of political refugees into the American landscape. Like Rozat Sabich who Americanizes his name to Rusty...