"After six years, the firm looked less like Lady Justice and more like a golddigger..." Alpha associate Will Lively should know. Winner of the biggestverdict in firm history, he's a sure bet to make partner. But when the casefinally pays off with a multi-million dollar fee, Will finds himself suddenly out of luck. His misfortune has barely begun. Instead of the corner office, he lands behind bars, charged with shooting his duplicitous boss, Dexter Billings.Losing everything he expected, Will finds what he wasn't even looking for-his heart and soul. Is it too late? Or can his legendary lawyer, Justin Jackson,save him from a brutal Texas pen: "We've got murder, sex, violence, greed--aprominent lawyer, a handsome associate, an office tart, an All-American jockof a son. What the hell else could they possibly ask for?" Jackson demands.A spectacle of a trial? You'll get one, and then some.



Born in Houston, Texas, Charles Lewis has spent most of his adult life in the capitol of Austin, a musical and cultural oasis. He practiced as a civil litigator in the cutthroat world of trial law before earning an MFAin Creative Writing from the University of Houston. There, he had the great fortune to hone his writing skills under renowned novelists Mary Robison and Denise Chavez, as well as the playwright Edward Albee. Charles later served as a managing editor at Summers Press, a small legal publishing house, before he undertook Breaking Precedent. It is his first novel. The author currently fancies himself something of a postmodern Renaissance man. In his spare time, he loves sharing la bella vita with the residents anywhere in Italy, when he's not fishing the fertile estuaries of his native Texas.