The first thing my family did when we moved was join the local church. The second was to go to the library and get library cards.

My decision to become a lawyer was irrevocably sealed when I realized my father hated the legal profession.

In my case, once you sell a lot of books and you are labeled a bestselling author, the serious critics are never gonna say anything nice about you.

And that's the mission of The Innocence Project in New York, is to exonerate people who have been wrongfully convicted, and also work from a policy angle with Congress and state legislatures to prevent future wrongful convictions.

I can't change overnight into a serious literary author. You can't compare apples to oranges. William Faulkner was a great literary genius. I am not.

Still, something about writing made me spend large hours of my free time at my desk.

The coffee arrives, and we backslide into what lawyers do best---talking about other lawyers.