Unfit to Practice - Softcover

Perri O'Shaughnessy

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0749933771 ISBN 13: 9780749933777

Publisher: Piatkus Paperback, 2003

Synopsis

It's the moment every lawyer fears most...One careless moment that threatens careers, reputations, lives...For Nina Reilly, it will change everything - igniting 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. 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. 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. 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.

About this title

Review

Was there something more criminal than grand theft auto involved in the disappearance of Nina Reilly's truck--and the legal files locked inside it? When confidential information from those files that could endanger Nina's clients and destroy her reputation surfaces, it begins to look as though someone wants to put the feisty Lake Tahoe attorney out of business. There's no shortage of suspects, including a policewoman who blames Nina for short-circuiting her promotion, a client with a guilty secret who's convinced it was Nina's negligence that lost his custody case, and a rival attorney who's seething over all the high-profile clients he's lost because of Nina's growing prominence. With help from her ex-husband, a legal malpractice specialist, and her lover, who's also her investigator, Reilly races the clock to get to the bottom of the smear campaign and save her license to practice in this smart, sexy thriller that makes the most of the author's gifts of clever plotting, characterization, and dramatic tension. Reilly, a single mom whose personal life is as chaotic as her career, is a series heroine who gets more interesting with every new adventure. The conclusion of this one, the author's eighth, finds Reilly pointed in a new direction with plenty of interesting possibilities for the future. --Jane Adams

From the Inside Flap

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.

"From the Hardcover edition.

Edition details

• Publisher: Piatkus Paperback
• Publication date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0749933771
• ISBN 13: 9780749933777
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 416