Phillip Margolin - Wild Justice

Are you still a practicing attorney?

I am still a member of the Oregon State Bar and the Federal Bar, but I have not practiced law since 1996. I didn't stop practicing because I disliked being a lawyer. I had a very exciting legal career. The reason I stopped was because it became impossible to practice law and write the type of books I was writing at the same time. When my first two novels, Heartstone and The Last Innocent Man, were published in 1978 and 1981, respectively, they were not bestsellers and I did not do any promotion for them. When Gone, But Not Forgotten, my third novel, was published in 1993, my publisher wanted me to go on a book tour. By 1993 I had a very busy criminal defense practice. Many of my cases were death penalty murder cases or federal drug conspiracy cases which require a lawyer to be in court for a few weeks to a few months and also require a lawyer to do a tremendous amount of preparation. The judges and district attorneys in Oregon were very kind to me when I asked for setovers in cases so that I could go on my first book tour.

However, I realized that the tours were going to get longer and that it was impossible to do the type of job I would have to do to provide my clients with competent legal representation and be out of state for a month or so at a time. I had been a practicing attorney for twenty-five years and I had done almost everything that a criminal defense attorney can do. On the other hand, I had never had an opportunity to be a fulltime writer. I worked on my books on the weekends and in the morning. I wanted to see what it would be like to be a fulltime writer and I finally achieved that goal in 1996 when I finished my last case. I love writing and I loved being an attorney. Right now I am enjoying writing so much that I want to continue it fulltime.

What made you start writing?

I have always been a voracious reader and reading the works of Conrad, Shakespeare, Hemingway, etc., convinced me that I could not possibly write publishable fiction. In my last semester of law school, I decided to try to write a novel simply to figure out how people wrote books that were 400 pages long. I was never able to write anything more than twenty-five pages and this was a great mystery to me. My first two novels were terrible and I didn't try to get them published. In 1974, Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine published a short story I had written, called The Girl in the Yellow Bikini. (I got paid $65.) This gave me self-confidence to try to write a publishable novel. My first job after law school was working as the clerk for the Chief Judge of the Oregon Court of Appeals. While serving in that capacity I learned about the Peyton-Allen murders, which were Oregon's most famous murder cases at that time. In my opinion, this is the single most complex and amazing murder case in American history. Fortunately for me, it was an Oregon case and few people knew about it outside of the state. I decided to try to write a novel based on the Peyton-Allen murders. That book was Heartstone, published in 1978. It was nominated for an Edgar Award.

How did you get your first book published?

Luck has always played a major factor in my writing career. I had written five chapters and an outline of Heartstone, my first novel, when Marty Bauer, a friend from New York University School of Law, called me from New York and told me that he and his wife were going to come to Oregon on vacation. I hadn't talked to Marty since we graduated from law school. When I picked him up at the airport, I found out that Marty was one of the attorneys at International Creative Management, one of the largest literary agencies in the world. I asked Marty if he would show my chapters to somebody at his agency because I wasn't sure whether they were of publishable quality and I wanted to know if I was wasting my time. Two weeks later I came back from court and everyone was sitting around with a bottle of champagne. I asked them what was going on and they told me that my agent had called from New York and had sold my novel.

Can you tell us how you got the ideas for some of your books?

As a practicing criminal attorney, I am frequently asked how I can represent a person who I know is guilty. I decided to explore that ethical and moral dilemma in the context of a novel. My second book, The Last Innocent Man, is about a criminal defense lawyer who decides to base the way he represents a client on his own personal view of the client's guilt or innocence rather than being an adversary for his client, the way he is supposed to in the American criminal justice system.

The idea for Gone, But Not Forgotten came from a dinner party conversation I had with a friend. It led me to think about what I would do if Adolf Hitler asked me to be his attorney. In Gone, But Not Forgotten, I have a heroine who is nationally known for representing women in cases involving women's issues. She is hired by a mysterious multi-millionaire who may be the Rose Killer, a horrifying serial killer who dehumanizes women before he kills them. This puts the heroine's personal ethics and morals at odds with her duty as a defense attorney to represent anyone no matter who they are or what crime they have committed.

The Burning Man is very loosely based on a real murder case that I handled in the mid-1980s.

Are the fictional cases in your books similar to real criminal cases?

My fictional cases are similar in many ways to real cases, but they are also very different. I have handled thirty homicide cases and only two of them had mystery elements in them. Most real life cases are fascinating for the lawyer trying them, but pretty dull for anyone sitting through them. You usually know who did the killing and the issue is whether the defendant acted in self-defense, was insane, etc. When I write about a trial in one of my books, I make sure that only the exciting parts are included. If I wrote about a trial the way it is in real life, most readers would fall asleep after a few pages.

I also try to stay away from the Perry Mason type of lawyer, even though I really enjoy the Perry Mason novels. My lawyers have real problems and are not perfect. Most of my fictional lawyers have character flaws. However, the lawyers in my books are normal, decent people who may act heroically or badly in specific circumstances.

What process do you go through between getting an idea for a novel and handing in a finished draft?

It usually takes me a few years between the time I get an idea for a book and the time I actually finish a novel. I usually get an idea but cannot figure out how to create a complete book from it. I forget about the idea for a while. Then a second idea comes into my head and I realize at some point that I can put it together with the first idea and create a whole book.

I won't start writing until I have figured out the ending of the book. I have to know who the bad guy is and what clue trips him up. Once I have my ending, I write an extensive outline that details all the plot twists and where the clues and red herrings are going to be inserted in the plot. It then takes me six to eight months to write a first draft of the book. My first draft is usually pretty bad. I spend four to six months of intense editing getting the book into final shape.

Do you have any favorite courtroom thrillers?

There are several excellent courtroom thrillers. Among my favorites are Agatha Christie's Witness for the Prosecution, Scott Turow's Presumed Innocent, and Anatomy of a Murder by Robert Traver.

About the Author

PHILLIP MARGOLIN's compelling insider's view of criminal behavior comes from his unique background as a longtime criminal defense attorney. Each of his seven novels has been a New York Times bestseller. He lives in Portland, Oregon.