Former Bingham Lawyer Publishes His 18th Novel
Richard North Patterson gave up a partnership at the firm now known as Bingham McCutchen to pursue a different career, and he makes more money than ever.
Patterson went from the Securities and Exchange Commission to BigLaw to full-time writing, the Washington Post reports. “He’s the rare D.C. attorney who gave up lawyering for life as a novelist—and got a pay bump for it,” the newspaper says.
Patterson has published his 18th book, In the Name of Honor, about the murder of a soldier returning from Iraq with post-traumatic stress disorder. He wrote his first book in 1976 after feeling bad about leaving his 1-year-old child at home as he left on a business trip from Alabama to Denver. A rough draft of the first chapter was composed on the plane.
Patterson finally retired from law practice in 1993 to devote himself to writing after his fifth book, Degree of Guilt, saw some success. “I was the unintended beneficiary of Scott Turow’s Presumed Innocent and John Grisham’s The Firm,” he told the Post.
