Legal Thriller
Date Published: February 11, 2017
Elizabeth Shaw finds herself in a dilemma of great magnitude when she’s appointed by Judge J.T. Lockman to represent the most hated man in the rural county where she practices law. Her client is accused of killing a popular legal assistant who worked for the most powerful lawyer in the county, a man who’s also about to announce his candidacy for governor of the state. Elizabeth’s dream that she might someday be appointed as a judge begins to dissipate when she takes on this highly controversial case, but disappears completely when the married gubernatorial candidate makes it clear that he wants an affair with her as the cost of any such appointment. This novel continues the arc of change in a rural county from the prejudices of the past to a more hopeful future when the county’s first female trial attorney enters the scene. She’s a woman who knows her way around the courtroom and how to accept the foibles of the men who surround her in the male dominated legal community, making her very popular with the courthouse regulars. Her talents are less accepted by some of the good old boys who run the power base of the county, but she’s prepared to take on anyone who gets in the way of proper representation of her clients. When her criminal client avows his innocence, her determination to do the best she can no matter what the consequences to her personal life puts her on a collision course with the most powerful lawyer in the county. It’s a battle to the end for the truth to come out about what really happened to the beautiful young assistant whose death haunts everyone who knew her.
Other Books in the Lincoln County Law Trilogy:
Legal Thriller
Volume I of the Lincoln County Law Trilogy
Published: March 2016
Brilliant young trial attorney J.T. Lockman finds himself in the trial of a lifetime when he’s appointed to represent an innocent African American man accused of murdering a wealthy white man in a county where the Klan has ruled supreme for many years. Lindsey Wilkens, a proud family man, has already experienced the impact of racism on a jury verdict. He was charged with dealing in stolen property for selling an electric saw he found abandoned in the woods as he walked home from work. He went to trial against his attorney’s advice and learned that innocence didn’t matter when it came to a finding of guilt in a courtroom set in one of the state’s most infamously racist counties. Now, when he finds himself in the bowels of a jailhouse run by the sheriff whose reputation is what gives the county its shameful notoriety, he turns to the same attorney, a man he’d learned to love during his first experience with criminal justice. Lockman embraces the chance to right what he considered a terrible wrong the first time his client was convicted, but he faces the wrath of public opinion, as well as the anger of his friends, family, and the woman he loves as he takes on the establishment of the county, bringing to the surface the many ghosts of its racist and violent past. In doing so, he must also come to terms with his own past if he will have any chance to save his relationship with the first woman he’s ever really loved. This is a book that makes us face the reality of our past, but carries within its pages a hope for a future where we, as a society, may be able to move beyond the disease of racism, although the journey may destroy the lives of many along the way.
Legal Thriller
Volume II of the Lincoln County Law Trilogy
Published August 2016
J.T. Lockman faces the challenge of a lifetime when he is appointed to enforce a teenager’s fundamental privacy rights while also representing a man charged with murdering his gay lover. He must face his own prejudices about issues that divide public opinion as his cases progress through the judicial system and come to terms with choices that matter and choices that don’t exist.
About the Author
During her thirty year career as a trial and appellate attorney, award winning author Jerri Blair litigated many high profiles cases involving her clients’ fundamental rights, some of which had a significant impact on the law. Her books reflect the reality of courtroom tactics and the intricacy of legal procedure, as well as her life experiences growing up in the segregated South and her fight for justice in the courtroom, sometimes all the way to the United States Supreme Court.
Contact Links
Purchase Links
