Fairy Tales Can Come True: How a Driven Woman Changed Her Destiny - Hardcover

Klieman, Rikki; Knobler, Peter

3

12 ratings by Goodreads

9780060524012: Fairy Tales Can Come True: How a Driven Woman Changed Her Destiny

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060524014 ISBN 13: 9780060524012

Publisher: William Morrow, 2003

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A warrior with a woman's heart

After abandoning her lifelong goal of becoming an actress, a young Rikki Klieman approached a former professor for advice about her future.

"How about that First Amendment course?" he asked her. "You did very well."

"I loved that course. That was my favorite course in college!"

"Why don't you think about going to law school?"

She had never given it a moment's thought. "Girls don't go to law school," she told him.

"No, but women do."

From there, it was just a little more than a decade until a thirty-five-year-old Rikki was named one of America's top five female trial attorneys by Time magazine for her work in criminal defense, one of the toughest branches of law for a woman to enter.

She defended clients ranging from accused drug smugglers to media moguls to well-meaning Christian Scientists Ginger and David Twitchell, whose beliefs were put on trial after the death of their child. She waged a war of nerves with Boston police and the FBI during negotiations for the return of fugitive sixties radical Katherine Ann Power.

As Rikki moved from success to success, however, the frenetic lifestyle of a defense attorney began to damage her health and happiness. She suffered from exhaustion, chronic back pain, and two failed marriages, but considered these afflictions to be part of "the price of the prize." After several decades as a practicing attorney, she joined Court TV, where she gained national prominence covering the O.J. Simpson trial and she went on to host Court TV's daily show Both Sides.

Now, at midlife, this warrior with a woman's heart has finally achieved, in her loving marriage to LAPD chief Bill Bratton, the balance many seek but few find. Her dramatic story proves that fairy tales can come true and that great love and great success can go hand in hand.

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About the Author:

Rikki Klieman has been an anchor on the Courtroom Television Network since 1994. She has appeared on virtually all national ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC news programs, as well as Oprah!, Good Morning America, 60 Minutes, 20/20, and Nightline. Klieman remains of counsel to the law firm of Klieman, Lyons, Schindler, and Gross, and lives with her husband in Los Angeles.

From Publishers Weekly:

In this solid memoir, Klieman, the tough, hardworking, fast-talking trial attorney and Court TV anchor, describes how she relentlessly prepared for high-profile cases, yet wasn't above wearing pretty dresses in court to soothe petulant judges. Inappropriately titled (there's little magic in Klieman's descriptions of 20-hour workdays and the chronic tension that found her routinely vomiting on Sunday nights before another week of work at the intense Boston law firm Choate, Hall), Klieman's tale isn't exactly one of a poor girl being rescued by a handsome prince. Klieman was smart enough to mix her own skills with savvy. She knew how to network, whether schmoozing with politicians or closing down the bars with fellow lawyers and cops after a day in court. Interestingly, Klieman trained as an actress before going into law, and her descriptions of the theatrics involved in trials (including her plea bargain for FBI fugitive Katherine Ann Power) are the book's strength. In 1999, Klieman married her third husband, Bill Bratton, who is now Los Angeles chief of police. The book ends as the East Coast-based Klieman follows Bratton west as he assumes his new post. "I was faced with... moving my life to another coast without a clue as to what I was going to do, with no security except the love of my husband," she writes. "How daring. What a trial. How very postfeminist." Not to worry. It appears the first thing she did is write an honest book that should appeal to women trying to have it all. Color photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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