Mickey Haller
J. Michael "Mickey" Haller, Junior is a fictional character created by Michael Connelly in the 2005 novel The Lincoln Lawyer. Haller, a Los Angeles-based defense attorney, is the paternal half-brother of Connelly's best-known character, LAPD Detective Hieronymus "Harry" Bosch. The Mickey Haller series consists of seven published novels, with the most recent published in 2019.
| J. Michael Haller, Jr. | |
|---|---|
 Matthew McConaughey as Mickey Haller | |
| First appearance | The Lincoln Lawyer |
| Created by | Michael Connelly |
| Portrayed by | Matthew McConaughey |
| In-universe information | |
| Full name | J. Michael Haller, Junior |
| Nickname | Mickey, The Lincoln Lawyer |
| Gender | Male |
| Occupation | Defense attorney |
| Affiliation | none |
| Spouse |
|
| Children | Hayley (daughter) |
| Relatives | Hieronymus "Harry" Bosch (half-brother) |
| Nationality | American |
A film adaptation of The Lincoln Lawyer, starring Matthew McConaughey as Mickey Haller, was released in the spring of 2011.[1]
Fictional character biography
Background
Haller is significantly younger than his half-brother, Bosch. When Bosch first met his father, Michael Haller Sr., Bosch was an adult but Mickey was only five years old. (However, in chapter 19 of The Black Ice, Bosch mentions just one, unnamed half-brother. Bosch notes that the half-brother is a defense attorney and “probably born a few years ahead of Bosch”.) The elder Michael Haller was a famous defense attorney in the Los Angeles area. Haller's mother was born in Mexico, and in The Fifth Witness, Haller himself says that he looks "more south of the border than north." Little is known of Haller's childhood other than the death of his father (which occurred shortly after the meeting with Bosch) and his inheritance of his father's Colt Woodsman pistol, mentioned in The Lincoln Lawyer. Haller followed in his father's footsteps, becoming a defense attorney. Most of Haller's knowledge of his father comes from law books he has read and stories from judges and other lawyers who had worked with the elder Haller prior to his death.
The Mickey Haller novels are narrated exclusively in the first-person by Mickey Haller. As such, The Crossing – although it features appearances by Mickey Haller – is really a Harry Bosch novel, because it is narrated entirely in the third person. And therefore cannot be considered an official Lincoln Lawyer novel. By comparison, all but two of the Harry Bosch novels are narrated in the third-person. (Both Lost Light and The Narrows are narrated in the first person by the temporarily retired Harry Bosch.)
As it stands, there are five novels in The Lincoln Lawyer series. The latest is The Gods of Guilt. Connelly has also confirmed he will publish another novel from Haller's point of view in 2020.
Personal life
Haller has been married and divorced twice, once to Maggie McPherson and once to Lorna Taylor. McPherson, with whom he has a daughter, Hayley, is a career prosecutor with the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office, and is nicknamed "McFierce" by defense lawyers. They divorced due to their opposite careers—Haller was defending accused criminals, while McPherson was prosecuting them. They have continued to maintain a close relationship, with periodic reconciliations. Taylor is currently Haller's Case Manager and is married to Haller's current investigator, Dennis "Cisco" Wojciechowski. Haller maintains good relationships with both of his ex-wives and has joint custody of his daughter. In The Brass Verdict, Haller is revealed to have visitation of his daughter on Wednesday nights and alternate weekends. By the events of The Fifth Witness, however, Haller reveals that is only the "official arrangement" and he sees his daughter far more frequently.
During the series Haller has used two private investigators for his trials. The first, Raul "Mish" Levin was murdered during the events of The Lincoln Lawyer, his nickname "Mish" was bestowed upon him by Haller after Haller learned of his "mish-mash" of Mexican-Jewish ancestry. His second investigator, Wojciechowski, was formerly a member of the motorcycle gang The Road Saints, whom Haller frequently represented, and was nicknamed by the gang after the Cisco Kid, an outlaw-adventurer Wild West character created by O. Henry in 1907. Cisco was introduced in The Brass Verdict.
Haller was nicknamed "the Lincoln Lawyer" because of his preference for working out of his Lincoln Town Car instead of in an office. However, during The Fifth Witness, Haller temporarily rents an office on a one-year lease. With the influx in foreclosure clients at that time, Haller has hired an associate, Jennifer "Bullocks" Aronson, a new graduate of Southwestern Law School, which is located in the former Bullocks Wilshire.
In 9 Dragons, Haller makes a short cameo as Harry Bosch's lawyer; a murder suspect even states that Matthew McConaughey was his alibi. He later suggests that their daughters (Harry's Maddie and Mickey's Hayley) should get together; their daughters would later meet during the events of The Reversal. Later on in the book, a reference is made to the movie adaptation of The Lincoln Lawyer starring Matthew McConaughey.
Haller's discomfort with representing the guilty is a constant theme in the series, and he has twice attempted to move to the prosecution side. In The Reversal, Haller is appointed as a special prosecutor to overturn the exoneration of Jason Jessup, a convicted child-murderer who was freed after DNA evidence cleared him of wrongdoing. Haller teams up with McPherson and Bosch to retry Jessup. At the end of The Fifth Witness, Haller files to run for Los Angeles County district attorney, with McPherson's support. At the beginning of The Gods of Guilt, however, it is described that his campaign turned into disaster when the client whom he got acquitted for drunk driving does the same thing again, killing a mother and her daughter, the latter being a classmate of Haller's daughter who then refuses to talk to him for most of the book.
Novel series
| Novel | Role | Partner and associates | Client |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Lincoln Lawyer (2005) | Defense Attorney | Lorna Taylor (secretary), Raul Levin (private investigator) | Louis Roulet; accused rapist and attempted murderer |
| The Brass Verdict (2008) | Defense Attorney | Harry Bosch (police investigation), Lorna Taylor (secretary), Dennis "Cisco" Wojciechowski (private investigator) | Walter Elliot; accused murderer |
| The Reversal (2010) | Prosecutor | Maggie McPherson (2nd Chair), Harry Bosch (lead investigator) | Special prosecutor of Jason Jessup (accused child-murderer) |
| The Fifth Witness (2011) | Defense Attorney | Jennifer "Bullocks" Aronson (2nd Chair), Lorna Taylor (secretary), Dennis "Cisco" Wojciechowski (private investigator) | Lisa Trammel; accused murderer |
| The Gods of Guilt (2013) | Defense Attorney | Jennifer "Bullocks" Aronson (2nd Chair), Lorna Taylor (secretary), Dennis "Cisco" Wojciechowski (private investigator), David "Legal" Siegel (mentor) | Andre LaCosse; accused murderer |
Film
| Film | Haller | Role | Partner and associates | Client |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Lincoln Lawyer (2011) | Matthew McConaughey | Defense Attorney | Lorna Taylor (secretary) Frank Levin (private investigator) Earl (chauffeur) Val Valenzuela (bail bondsman) |
Louis Roulet, accused rapist and murderer Gloria Teddie Vogel, biker gang leader Jesus Martinez |
Box office performance
| Film | Release date | Box office revenue | Budget | Profit | Reference | |||
| Worldwide | United States | Domestic | Foreign | Worldwide | ||||
| The Lincoln Lawyer | March 18, 2011 | March 18, 2011 | $58,009,200 | $17,000,000 | $75,009,200 | $40,000,000 | $35,009,200 | [2] |
References
- Official announcement of The Lincoln Lawyer movie adaptation on Connelly's website Archived September 15, 2010, at the Wayback Machine
- "The Lincoln Lawyer (2011)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2011-05-11.