Legal English

Mark Darrow grew up in a small Ohio town with no real advantages beyond his intelligence and athletic ability. But thanks to the intervention of Lionel Farr—a professor at Caldwell, the local college—Darrow became an excellent student and, later, a superb trial lawyer. Now Farr asks his still-youthful protégé for a life-altering favor. An embezzlement scandal has threatened Caldwell's very existence—would Darrow consider becoming its new president? Darrow accepts, but returning to his alma mater opens old wounds.

On the evening before Thanksgiving, Hal Chase, a guard in the San Francisco County Jail, drives to the airport to pick up his step-brother for the weekend. When they return, Hal’s wife, Katie, has disappeared without a clue. By the time Dismas Hardy hears about this, Katie has been missing for five days. The case strikes close to home because Katie had been seeing Hardy’s wife, a marriage counselor. By this time, the original Missing Persons case has become a suspected homicide, and Hal is the prime suspect.

It's been 10 years since the events that changed Johnny Merrimon's life and rocked his hometown to the core. Since then, Johnny has fought to maintain his privacy, but books have been written of his exploits; he has fans, groupies. Living alone in the wilderness beyond town, Johnny's only connection to normal life is his old friend, Jack. They're not boys anymore, but the bonds remain. What they shared. What they lost.

When private investigator Lana Parker follows a dangerous biker into an underground sex club, James Hunter is the last man she expects to see. But there he is, all dark looks and chiseled charms, ready to break her heart all over again. Danger is the name of the game for an undercover cop. And the last thing James wants is for the fiery beauty to come anywhere near the notorious biker gang he's trying to take down.

A dead man in the kitchen, gas fumes permeate the house, a duck seems to be drowning in the fishbowl, but it didn't die. Maybe that fact has something to do with murder? John L. Witherspoon, a wealthy patrician, is loath to let his daughter marry Marvin Adams, the son of a convicted murderer, something Marvin's mother managed to keep a secret - until now. To set the love-struck lass straight, Witherspoon engages Perry Mason to weigh the 20-year-old evidence that sent Marvin's father to the gallows, and prove that the young man is kin to the murdering kind.

When Dismas Hardy agrees to clean up the caseload of recently disappeared attorney Charlie Bowen, he thinks it will be easy. But one of the cases is far from small-time - the appeal to overturn the murder conviction of National Guard reservist Evan Scholler, who has been sentenced to life without parole for the murder of an ex-Navy SEAL and private contractor named Ron Nolan. Two rapid-fire events in Iraq conspired to bring the men into fatal conflict.

When a tremendous blast rocks an old school building in East Harlem during a meeting of the New York Charter Schools, killing six and wounding a dozen others, it's initially blamed on a natural gas explosion. However, as Butch Karp digs a little deeper, he discovers the explosion was the work of a mysterious serial arsonist in the employ of the teacher's union president, who is angry at the unqualified successes of the charter school movement in New York City and worried for the corrupt public school system.

When attorney Ben Kincaid came to Washington, D.C., to defend a senator caught in a murder case, he never dreamed he'd end up a senator himself. After his client stepped down, Ben was appointed to complete his term. Now he must advise a Supreme Court nominee during his confirmation. The judge looks like a shoo-in, until he outs himself on national TV. Ben calls a press conference for the now controversial candidate. And then, on live TV, a brutally murdered woman is discovered in the judge's backyard.

When a new client who's been accused of murder - and who bears an astonishing resemblance to Bennie Rosato - asks the crusading criminal defense attorney to take her case, Bennie finds herself entangled in a sticky web of murder, corruption, and violence that threatens to reveal the shocking truth about her own past. If you haven't listened to Lisa Scottoline before, Mistaken Identity will prove to you what her many fans already know: Nobody does it better!

Lawyer Judy Carrier takes the case of an elderly pigeon racer, Tony Lucia, who has been arrested for the murder of his lifelong enemy, Angelo Coluzzi. "Pigeon Tony", as he's known, confesses to Judy that he killed Coluzzi because of a vendetta begun more than 50 years ago.

Because he is poised to desecrate the dreams of so many, it's no surprise that somebody dares to stop him in cold blood. When David McIvey is murdered outside the clinic's doors, lawyer Barbara Holloway must use her razor-sharp instincts and take-no-prisoners attitude to create a defense for the two members of the clinic accused of his murder.

Defense attorney Henry Garrison expected his newest case to be an easy paycheck. But his client Gillian Murphy is nothing like he expected. There's much more to the beautiful woman than he imagined. Gillian knows that she's innocent and that Henry is the best lawyer to represent her. But he doesn't know why she's so fascinated with him. He wonders if any woman can break through his well-placed walls. As the case takes a wild turn and Gillian's entire life is upended, her very identity in question, she must look to the people she's closest to in order to find a killer....

Equality is easy to grasp in theory but often hard to achieve in reality. In this accessible and wide-ranging work, American University law professor Robert L. Tsai offers a stirring account of how legal ideas that aren't necessarily about equality at all - ensuring fair play, behaving reasonably, avoiding cruelty, and protecting free speech - have often been used to overcome resistance to justice and remain vital today.

Now that attorney Jason Rich has returned home to Guntersville, Alabama, the “In an accident? Get rich!” lawyer is anxious to leave his checkered past behind. Jason hopes this next chapter in his life will be a chance to confront his personal troubles while making amends with his family. But when a former high school football star stands accused of killing a police officer, Jason is unwillingly thrust into the chaos.

The McCarrans and the Gallaghers, two military families, have been close for decades, ever since Anthony McCarran—now one of the army's most distinguished generals—became best friends with Jack Gallagher, a fellow West Pointer who was later killed in Vietnam. Now a new generation of soldiers faces combat, and Lt. Brian McCarran, the general's son, has returned from a harrowing tour in Iraq. Traumatized by wartime experiences he will not reveal, Brian depends on his lifelong friendship with Kate Gallagher, Jack's daughter, who is married to Brian's commanding officer in Iraq.

Legal investigator Finley O’Sullivan searches for evidence the police overlooked, wading through secrets, lies, and betrayal to find answers. With the unsolved murder of her husband still very much on her mind, Finley must confront her own personal trauma on a daily basis. Lies are part of her livelihood, but they’re also the reason she can’t get justice for the man she loved. When a man imprisoned for murder recants his confession, claiming he cleaned up the mess for his girlfriend—the victim’s own daughter—Finley takes on the case.

Cold-blooded killer JimBone Wheeler blames Tom McMurtrie for putting him on death row. He once vowed that he’d bring “a reckoning” on Tom and everyone the southern lawyer holds dear. When Wheeler escapes from prison, he aims to fulfill his promise. Victim by victim, he’s getting closer to his ultimate target. But for Tom, who’s dying of cancer, the role of savior and protector is a struggle that is becoming more desperate by the hour.

Joe Fielding wasn't an ordinary investigator. He wasn't clean, he wasn't honorable, and he wasn't truthful—he was one of the most corrupt, ruthless, and fraudulent investigators to ever walk the streets of Chicago. Fielding's employment at a family law firm was littered with criminal activity, and his employers were determined to see his secrets go to the grave with him.

Did a sweet-faced Amish teenager brutally murder a young woman? To save her career, big-city lawyer Jessica Langdon is determined to defend him against the community's bitter and even violent outrage. Yet without an understanding of Amish culture, Jessica must rely on arrogant businessman Trey Morgan, who has ties to the Amish community and believes in the boy's guilt.

It's two in the morning when Hannah Sheraton slips into Archer's Hermosa Beach apartment to see if Josie Bates sleeps in his bed. But Josie isn't there. In fact, Josie isn't anywhere. When her Jeep is found abandoned in a parking lot near the Redondo pier, the only clue to her whereabouts leads Archer to Daniel Young, an expert witness for the prosecution in the case that made Josie's reputation as a defense attorney 10 years earlier. From the Hollywood Hills to the glitzy evangelical enclave of Orange County, Archer bores into the past.