He was educated at Southaven High School, DeSoto County, Mississippi (where he would later practice criminal and civil law for a decade), and continued on to earn a BS degree at Mississippi State University in 1977 and a JD degree from the University of Mississippi School of Law in 1981.
Long before his name became synonymous with the modern legal thriller, he was working 60-70 hours a week at a small Southaven, Mississippi, law practice, squeezing in time before going to the office and during courtroom recesses to work on his hobby—writing his first novel.
His first novel, A Time to Kill, was published modestly in 1988, but by the time his second novel, The Firm, was published it became the best-selling novel, of 1991 followed by another success, The Pelican Brief, in 1992.
He is not only an author but is also a well-known American lawyer and a politician. His books which are basically thrillers have achieved so much fame that they have been translated in to forty two languages.
John Ray Grisham
