A Civil Action Characters & Character Analysis

A Civil Action Important People

Jan Schlichtmann

Jan Schlichtmann is a flamboyant, somewhat egotistical, personal injury lawyer, who grew up in a small working-class community in Massachusetts, not particularly enamored with the legal profession. In fact, when his father suggested this as a potential profession for him, Schlichtmann responded that a lawyer was little different from a plumber, both being hired to "fix" things in people's lives, whether these were wills and divorces or leaky pipes and faucets. He majored in philosophy and sold life insurance to graduate students upon graduation. His interest in the law began as he watched the Watergate Trials, when he began to see the law as a vehicle to help people and the public. By the time he entered Cornell Law School, he was already working in the field, as the Executive Director of the Rhode Island ACLU. Practicing as a small town "country" lawyer, Schlichtmann won...
(read more)