Title: The Last Privilege Genre: Legal Thriller Setting: Modern-day Mississippi, deep South – a decaying mansion, a prestigious but fading law firm, and a small town with long memories. Plot Summary: Protagonist: Eli Mercer, 36, a principled but underachieving attorney working in his late father's law firm in Jackson, Mississippi. Haunted by his father’s larger-than-life legal legacy, Eli has spent his career in the shadows—until one client walks through the door and changes everything. The Inciting Incident: Caroline Voss, a young woman in her late twenties, shows up at Eli’s office. She is the last living heir of the vast, secretive Voss family fortune, tied to a notorious Southern timber and shipping empire. But there’s a twist: twenty years ago, her mother, Margaret Voss, inexplicably signed a notarized inheritance disclaimer, legally waiving her claim (and Caroline's) to the family estate. Margaret died in a suspicious fire shortly after. All other key signatories to the disclaimer—including the patriarch, two witnesses, and the family’s longtime estate attorney—are now dead under either natural or mysterious circumstances. Only Eli’s now-deceased father, Richard Mercer, was the drafting and witnessing attorney. Eli finds the file in a locked archive, stamped "Privileged – DO NOT OPEN WITHOUT COURT ORDER." It's covered in notes, drafts, and a conflicted memo to self suggesting coercion, and something worse. The Conflict: Caroline suspects the disclaimer was forged or signed under duress. She wants Eli to help her challenge it. But there's a problem: The original disclaimer was protected by attorney-client privilege, and only the attorney (now dead) and the original client (also dead) could waive it. Eli is now the custodian of his father’s files, which could blow open the case—or destroy his father's legacy. The deeper Eli digs, the more sinister it becomes. He finds out: The notary died in a car crash two weeks after the signing. The witnesses were both employees of the Voss family business, and one had filed an anonymous OSHA complaint months prior. His father had once tried to resign from the case but was threatened with disbarment by a secretive senior partner. The Legal Stakes: Eli is threatened with disbarment and criminal charges if he breaches privilege. Caroline is being followed. Her apartment is broken into. A sealed envelope is found containing her mother's diary and a single warning: "He knew. Your lawyer knows." A judge with ties to the Voss estate fast-tracks a motion to destroy the Mercer files under a “confidentiality preservation order.” Eli is faced with a brutal choice: Honor the privilege and protect the legal system’s integrity, or expose a conspiracy that could deliver justice to Caroline—but destroy his career and the firm his father built. Twist Ending: Eli finds a loophole: the original privilege may have died with the client—if the crime-fraud exception applies. He petitions the court in secret, risking contempt. During the hearing, a dying confession from a former law clerk emerges, implicating not only the family but a sitting judge, a state senator, and Eli's father himself, who had tried to cover it up out of fear. In the end, Caroline reclaims the estate—but gives it away to victims of the Voss empire's abuse. Eli leaves law behind—writing a book called The Last Privilege—finally stepping out from his father’s shadow.