Unfit to Practice: A Novel

It’s the moment every attorney fears most...one careless moment that threatens careers, reputations, lives. For Nina Reilly, it will change everything—and ignite a case where her own clients are witnesses against her...and where the defendant is Nina herself.

As an attorney championing desperate people, Nina Reilly has skirted the edges of legal ethics in pursuit of a just result, but she has never before broken the rule of absolute protection of her clients’ secrets. One September night in Lake Tahoe when her unlocked truck is stolen, her life changes forever. Gone are her most sensitive case files, complete with the sometimes brutally candid notes she took while interviewing her clients.

It’s every attorney’s nightmare. And now the worst has happened: The secrets are being revealed, one by one, in ways that will cause the greatest harm. Nina’s own clients complain to the State Bar of California, and suddenly Nina is fighting for her license and her livelihood in a legal proceeding that may ultimately lead her to disbarment. In desperation, Nina turns to her ex-husband, celebrated San Francisco lawyer Jack McIntyre, to represent her.

And as personal tensions erupt between McIntyre and Nina’s sometime boyfriend, private investigator Paul van Wagoner...as reputations are ruined and people begin to die...a chilling pattern of rage and revenge comes into focus. Someone is bent on destroying the lives of Nina’s clients and, in the process, Nina Reilly.