At the time of filming, author John Grisham had casting approval over all film adaptations of his work, and specified that "no professional child actors in Hollywood" be cast as Mark Sway. He felt that the film wouldn't work with a well-known child actor (sporting a phony accent) in the role and that by casting an unknown in the part (preferably from the Memphis area, where the story is set) the film's credibility wouldn't be compromised. Brad Renfro, a native of Knoxville, Tennessee beat out thousands of actors for the role, including Macaulay Culkin.
The cast and crew put on a party for Brad Renfro's 11th birthday during filming of the movie and he received his first electric guitar as gift.
The Elvis PEZ dispenser was designed specifically for this movie, by the props department, and has never been made by PEZ.
John Grisham was so pleased with this adaptation of his work that he agreed to sell the closely-guarded film rights to A Time to Kill (1996) on the condition that Joel Schumacher directed it. Akiva Goldsman also wrote both scripts.
On his experience working in the film, Anthony Heald said: "The real joy of that situation was getting to work with J.T. Walsh. I had worked with him early in my career [in The Beniker Gang (1984)], and he was drinking at the time, and he was a terrible person to be around. By the time we did The Client (1994), he'd achieved sobriety, and he was the most wonderful, gracious -- just a true prince".
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