As in his subsequent novels, Turow focuses on the law and its ambiguities.

He also begins illustrating the toll that the law can take on those who adopt it as a profession. The long demanding hours of law school eventually translate to the equal demands of the workplace that bring such trouble to his later protagonists, Rusty Sabich, Sandy Stern, and Mack Malloy.

Interestingly enough, a Sandy Stern does appear in this book. However, this engineering student from MIT who eventually makes the Law Review is not the Argentinean-born Stern who plays a major role in both Presumed Innocent and The Burden of Proof and who is mentioned fleetingly in Pleading Guilty (1993).