"Transformers" star Shia LaBeouf is set to play the title role in the upcoming legal thriller, "The Associate," based on novelist John Grisham's soon-to-be released novel.

The 22-year-old actor will be playing a student who is about to graduate from Yale Law School when he was offered a job at a law firm and given privileged information about a multibillion-dollar lawsuit, Variety reports.

Lorenzo di Bonaventura is producing for Paramount Pictures.

The Associate novel is set to hit bookstores in January, while the film has not disclosed its production date start yet.

LaBeouf can next be seen in the romance flick "New York, I Love You" in February and in "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" in June.