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"A page-turning story....very creative, very entertaining, and very informative." - Prof. Steven Lubet, Northwestern University Law School; "An exciting thriller; highly recommended." -- Midwest Book Review; "There are mysteries behind mysteries, betrayals beyond betrayal, and clever plotting that keeps the reader turning pages and wondering...Harper knows his law, and he knows his writing. He's definitely a new author to watch...." -- Gather.com

"Gripping, tender, and intriguing..."- Scott Turow; "Riveting eyewitness history...Bravo."- Charles Brandt, author of "I Heard You Paint Houses": Frank "The Irishman" Sheeran and Closing the Case on Jimmy Hoffa; WASHINGTON CITY PAPER: "American history at its best: told from the ground up."; BLOOMBERG NEWS: "Fascinating and moving..."; CHICAGO TRIBUNE: "An entertaining account..."; THE AMERICAN LAWYER: "Tightly woven and gritty...poignant and personal...."; CHICAGO SUN-TIMES: "A son's love letter to his father...."; "Elegant and moving...a must-read...."- Steven Lubet, Professor of Law and author of Murder in Tombstone: The Forgotten Trial of Wyatt Earp and numerous other books; BOOKLIST: "A tale of mystery and intirgue...unique and personal...."; "An indelible account...."- William Swanson, author of Dial M: The Murder of Carol Thompson

"How greatly we need this well-written and evocative book about one of our greatest 20th century teachers." - Georgie Anne Geyer "A graceful and admiring biography...." - John Morton Blum, Yale University, Sterling Professor of History (emeritus) "More than a tribute, the book is also the story of the last century in America and the experience of a non-practicing Jew caught between total assimilation and anti-Semitism." - Annotation copyright @Book News Inc., Portland, OR, www.booknews.com

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BOOKS & BLOG

CLICK HERE to check out Steve's award-winning blog, "THE BELLY OF THE BEAST"
CLICK HERE to watch Steve's Convocation Address to Northwestern University's Weinberg College of Arts & Sciences graduating class of 2010
CLICK HERE to watch student Brian Wasserman's introduction of Steve's Convocation Address to Northwestern's graduating class of 2010
CLICK HERE to watch a short reading from THE PARTNERSHIP
CLICK HERE to hear Steve's interview on EXTENSION 720 with MILT ROSENBERG
CLICK HERE to order THE PARTNERSHIP
CLICK HERE to watch Steve's interview on The Legal Broadcast Network


NOW AVAILABLE IN TRADE PAPERBACK AND ON KINDLE: THE PARTNERSHIP -- STEVE'S DEBUT NOVEL -- A 21ST CENTURY LEGAL THRILLER WITH A TWIST.
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The Partnership opens a window into a secret world.
A mysterious death, illicit romantic liaisons, courtroom drama, and crises of personal conscience frame a titanic struggle at the nation’s most lucrative law firm. A twenty-first-century legal thriller with a twist, The Partnership reveals what happens to rich and powerful insiders as the business school mentality extends its tentacles across a once-noble profession. The themes resonate; The Bonfire of the Vanities still burns.

Albert Knight has reached the pinnacle of power as one of the magnificent seven—leaders of the international legal powerhouse Michelman & Samson. Only one step remains: Knight and his archenemy Ronald Ratkin are front-runners to replace the Executive Committee’s retiring chairman.

Knight and Ratkin were once best friends, but that was long ago. Despite their twenty-year animosity, each has embraced the firm’s transformation to a bottom-line business and the stunning wealth it produces. As the price of success, they endure and inflict profound personal damage along the way.

When gifted trial lawyer Ronald Ratkin’s $100 million client defies protocol by interrupting the sacrosanct Executive Committee meeting, all seven attorneys are suspicious. The news, Ratkin suspects, could upset his ongoing billion-dollar trial, send stocks plummeting, and destroy his client, his law firm, and his personal wealth. But the wily Ratkin has a foolproof plan. Or will his own greed and that of his fellow partners undo him?

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CROSSING HOFFA: A Teamster's Story (Minnesota Historical Society Press/Borealis Books, June 2007)


"ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR" -- Chicago Tribune

"ONE OF THE BEST AT THE HOLLYWOOD, NEW YORK, LONDON AND NEW ENGLAND BOOK FESTIVALS IN 2008 AND 2009!"

"This wonderful book is one of a kind - part thriller, part history, and part love story of an unusual sort: of a son for his father and the very different life he led. Crossing Hoffa is gripping, tender, and intriguing - pure pleasure on every page."
Scott Turow, author of Presumed Innocent, Limitations, and numerous other books


On a spring evening in 1961, over-the-road trucker Jim Harper was en route from Mauston, Wisconsin to his home in Minneapolis. At 70 miles per hour, with a combined 60,000 pounds of man, machine, and material, he approached a curve along the Great River Road and hit the brakes. The tractor-trailer didn't slow. Harper's brakes failed. For the second time in two weeks his truck had been sabotaged.

In preceding months, Harper had led an insurgency in his Teamsters' Local 544 to clean up corruption among its leaders. His efforts drew the attention of Jimmy Hoffa, at the time focused on securing his right to lead the national Teamsters organization without government intervention.

Jim Harper had his reasons for confronting his local's leadership - a hard-scrabble childhood and a stint in Angola prison had left him seeking redemption. But Hoffa, under federal investigation for questionable financial dealings, had deep, dark secrets; the last thing he needed was a spotlight on Minneapolis.

Even after Hoffa personally told him to stop the crusade, Harper would not stand down. He could not. His perseverance beyond all rationality placed him in mortal danger as his friends betrayed or deserted him and his enemies tried to kill him.

Somehow, he survived. When he died forty years later, the artifacts of his union battle remained among his most treasured possessions, documenting the defining episode of his life. But behind what he had always thought was just an unsuccessful effort to follow Hoffa's announced agenda of "union reform" lay a saga of courage and intrigue - a saga he would never know.

He was my father, and this is his story.

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STRADDLING WORLDS: The Jewish-American Journey of Professor Richard W. Leopold (Northwestern University Press, January 2008)
"As he spoke, it was easy to forget that he would soon celebrate his ninety-third birthday. Today, he wanted to discuss his death."– Prologue

For thirty years after my last class with one of Northwestern University's most illustrious professors, Richard W. Leopold, I had maintained contact with him, just as hundreds of other students had. Many of those counting him as a central influence from their early years had risen to national prominence: Senator George McGovern, congressmen Richard Gephardt and Jim Kolbe, journalist Georgie Anne Geyer, Assistant Secretary of State Phyllis Elliott Oakley, writer/director/producer Garry Marshall, Crate & Barrel founder Gordon Segal, and General Dynamics Chairman Nicholas Chabraja, among numerous others.

He had never married. By 2004, he was confined to a wheelchair and pesky tremors afflicted both hands. But his mind remained sharp as we talked during one of my monthly visits to his nursing home room. Surprisingly, he ventured for the first time into a deeply personal matter: the approaching end of his days.

"I am concerned," he said, "that no one knows the essential facts of my life well enough to write an accurate obituary when it is over."

I accepted his implicit challenge. Over the subsequent two years, we met every Sunday morning, eventually retracing his entire twentieth century journey. Along the way, we added my father-in-law, whose life had paralleled my former professor's. Born in the same year, 1912, and into Jewish lineages, both men grew up in secular homes. But the absence of any Jewish self-identification did not shield them from childhood anti-Semitism. They overcame discrimination to attend and succeed at Ivy League schools: after Princeton, Leopold received one of Harvard's first Ph.Ds in American history awarded to a Jew; after Yale, my father-in-law became one of only eight Jews in his medical school class of eighty-three at Western Reserve University. As members of the "Greatest Generation," they served with distinction as officers during World War II. When it ended, they resumed their climb to the top of their respective professions.

They persevered through a twentieth century Jewish-American experience that they and many others shared, but rarely discussed. As their lives ended, these two men told all of us their stories.

CLICK HERE for more about "Straddling Worlds: The Jewish-American Journey of Professor Richard W. Leopold" (Northwestern University Press, January 2008)