An Interview with Ken

Q. First, congratulations on the upcoming release of Silent Counsel. I’ve got to say the premise of the story is very intriguing. Why don’t you describe it to everyone?

A. Silent Counsel asks you to suppose the unimaginable: What if your child was killed in a hit-and-run, and the one person who knew the driver’s identity—his lawyer—couldn’t have to tell you his name? Silent Counsel is the story of just such a nightmare. A six-year-old boy is run down in front of his house, with no witnesses. His mother learns that the driver has hired an attorney to negotiate a plea arrangement with the prosecutor, but has instructed the lawyer to keep his name secret until a satisfactory agreement is in place. The prosecutor refuses to make a deal, and the court rejects the mother’s efforts to force the attorney to tell her—or even the authorities—who his client is, holding that it’s privileged information. Since the court won’t do anything to help the mother find who’s responsible, she takes matters into her own hands. And she’s determined to make the attorney talk—at any cost.

Q. You’re right—it does sound like a nightmare, from both the perspective of the mother and the lawyer. Could something like that actually happen? Could just the name of an attorney’s client really be privileged information?

A. Believe it or not, it’s not outside the realm of possibility. As a lawyer, I did a fair amount of legal research in preparing to write this story, and while there’s no firmly established rule one way or the other, there’s enough legal precedent to justify a holding that under just the right conditions, the simple name of a lawyer’s client can be considered privileged information.

Q. Now, as you say, you’re a lawyer. But you went to MIT. Law wouldn’t be the first career I’d think of on hearing MIT. What’s up with that?

A. You’re right—it’s not typical. I don’t know what the numbers were when I graduated from MIT, but today I think only about 4 out of 100 MIT grads go on to law school. When I was growing up in the 50’s and 60’s, the space race was in full swing, and I was utterly fascinated. I was eight years old when I watched Alan Shepard become the first American in space, and I don’t think I missed watching a single space launch from then until the last moon mission in 1972. I went to MIT with my eye on the stars, but things changed. That was the time of hippies, freaks, Vietnam, and Watergate. Like John Lennon said, “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”

Q. So you’ve been a lawyer for more than twenty-five years. When did you decide to write a novel? Did it take long?

A. [Laughs] I was afraid you’d ask me that. Let’s just say it was quite some time ago…and life happened while I was writing it. My wife keeps telling me it better not take me as long to write the second one. But seriously, it started as something I was doing just for myself. I’d come across a magazine article about a hit-and-run incident along a deserted highway in Florida. The driver had hired an attorney and told him to negotiate a plea agreement while at the same time keeping his (the client’s) name secret under a claim of privilege. The case was resolved before the court decided whether the name of a client could be privileged information—the client had an attack of conscience and came forward on his own. But the article got me thinking. As a lawyer, I write for a living, and I guess there are cynics who’d even say lawyers write fiction for a living! So, I decided to write the story that, after life happened to me for a while, finally became Silent Counsel.

Q. You say there’s a second book in the works? What can we expect in that?

A. I guess it won’t surprise you to hear that it, too, is law-related. In Death Benefit, a young law student working a summer job at a law office investigates the death of a firm client. What seems to be an accidental carbon monoxide poisoning due to a malfunctioning water heater leads our protagonist to discover the unseemly side of the burgeoning industry of viatical settlements.

Q. Viatical settlements? What are they?

A. [Smiles] I didn’t have clue either, before I started writing Death Benefit. Consider a typical life insurance policy. The problem with life insurance is that you pay and pay and pay, but there’s no upside to it until you die. When you’re terminally ill, though, you could find plenty of uses for that death benefit now. A viatical company offers you an option. It will pay you a significant percentage of the policy’s face value today, become the beneficiary of your policy, and take over the premium payments. You now have a significant sum of money available to you today, when it means the most. What’s in it for the viatical company? It’s playing the numbers, and is banking on the fact that you’ll pass away before its cash outlay exceeds the death benefit it’ll receive from your insurance company when you die. That’s their profit. If you live longer than expected, and the company’s out-of-pocket expense exceeds the death benefit—that’s a cost of doing business. In Death Benefit, we come across a viatical company that’s found a way to cut costs.

Q. I understand you work as general counsel to a major transportation company. It must be difficult to find the time to write. How do you manage that?

A. My alarm rings at 4:30 every morning, and I’m at my desk by six. That gives me a few solid hours before the emails start coming in and the phone starts ringing. At least that’s my schedule now. When I was writing Silent Counsel, I had an hour’s drive to and from my office. I got myself a handheld recorder and dictated on the Garden State Parkway each night and each morning. When I got to my office, I would transcribe what I’d dictated. Back then, bumper-to-bumper traffic meant a good day’s writing!

Q. I heard you ride a motorcycle. Have you been riding for long? What kind of bike do you have?

A. [Smiles] Ah, my bike. I ride a 2006 Harley Ultra Classic Electra Glide. I’d often told my kids that when I turned 50, I would buy a motorcycle. And when my 50th birthday came, my wife looked at me and said “Well, let’s both do it!” And we did. My kids thought I was nuts. But I have to tell you, I love it! Nothing better on a summer day than for my wife and me to get on our bikes and ride the whole day.

Q. One last question: There are hundreds of lawyers turned authors out there. What is it about your writing that sets you apart from them?

A. Well, first, I do hope that there is something that sets me apart. First, what I try to do is put my characters in situations that you won’t find beyond the realm of believability. In much of what we read, dead bodies pile up with nearly every turn of the page. I’ve been a lawyer for more than twenty-five years, and I know a lot of lawyers. I can’t name one that’s racked up a string of dead bodies on any of his or her cases. Maybe I just keep dull company. But in my stories, I think you’ll be able to identify with the characters. You’ll be able to say, “Yeah, I could see that happening. In fact, I could see it happening to me. And I wonder how I’d react if it did.”

Second, I try to pick an underlying theme for my stories. Nothing preachy, nothing too weighty, but something that’s just a bit more than “victim dies, now figure out who did it.” In Silent Counsel, it’s the attorney-client privilege. Everyone’s familiar with the concept of “privileged information,” and the story shows the very real impact that the doctrine has on the people it touches—both the lawyer who’s bound to remain silent, and the person on the other side who wants to know what the lawyer is keeping secret.

In Death Benefit, it will be the world of viatical settlements. There’s a whole industry out there that not too many people know about. And while there are no doubt many reputable players in the field, there do appear to be those who prey on the sick and the old. Death Benefit will get you thinking.

Now, don’t get the idea that this is all “Ken’s view on X.” All the while, I think I give you a ride that you’ll enjoy! Like Tess Gerritsen has said about Silent Counsel: “Everything you could want in a legal thriller!”