Scott Turow's Presumed Innocent (1987) created an interest in legal procedurals written by lawyers and law professors like William Bernhardt, Steve Martini, and John Grisham.

Harvey Jacobs's The Juror (1980), Parnell Hall's Juror (1990), Vincent S. Green's The Price of Victory (1992), and Steve Martini's Compelling Evidence (1992) and Prime Witness (1993)—both featuring attorney Paul Madriani—all focus on the jury-duty experience and the importance of jury selection.

John Grisham's novels clarify legal procedure, with A Time to Kill (1989) turning on pre-trial research, jury selection, and final deliberations, and The Firm (1992), The Pelican Brief (1993), The Client (1994), The Chamber (1995), and The Street Lawyer (1998) taking the legal novel in diverse directions.

Philip Friedman's Michael Ryan leads the defense in a sensational murder trial in Reasonable Doubt (1990) and his tough New York City prosecutor, Joe Estrada, sweats a conviction in Inadmissible Evidence (1992), while Lisa Scottoline's Everywhere That Mary Went (1993) follows lawyer Mary...