The Paper Chase is a 1970 novel, as well as a 1973 film based on the novel and a television series based on the movie. Written by John Jay Osborn, Jr., a 1970 graduate of Harvard Law School, the book tells the story of Hart, a first-year law student at Harvard, and his experiences with Professor Charles Kingsfield, the brilliant, demanding contracts instructor whom he both idolizes and finds incredibly intimidating. Plot The story centres on James Hart, a brilliant young law student from the Mid-West who attends Harvard Law School and becomes obsessed with one of his teachers, Professor Kingsfield. Hart becomes an expert on Kingsfield's subject, Contracts, he reads everything about the subject, including all of Kingsfield's papers, most of which are not on the reading list. He goes so far as to break into the law library to read Kingsfield's original undergraduate law notes. Hart becomes such an expert that Kingsfield asks him