November 16, 2008When I met Judge William Whitbeck in his office recently, I interrupted his work on an outline for an educational presentation for lawyers. Whitbeck, a Michigan Court of Appeals judge since 1997 (Chief Judge from 2002 to January of this year), has been writing opinions, arguments and conference speeches for decades.
It’s comes as little surprise, given his interest in writing, that his career path began in journalism. He was a McCormick Scholar, which included an internship at the Chicago Tribune in the early 1960s, and secured his undergraduate degree in journalism from Northwestern University.
He earned a law degree at the University of Michigan in 1966 and, subsequently, through the 1970s and into the ’90s, held several positions with the state and federal governments and practiced law in Lansing-area firms. Over a portion of those later years through to the present, Whitbeck has extended his writing from the legal realm into the fictional.
In fact, after years of intermittently working on and setting aside a manuscript — depending on the demands of his “day job” — Whitbeck recently completed a legal fiction novel.
He has navigated much of the national publishing maze with the book — finding reputable potential agents, preparing the query letters, synopses and documentation for agent review and making revisions for publisher consideration — and has garnered the interest of two publishing houses. He views having overcome these successive hurdles as a great success.
“Publishing is a very difficult, enormously winnowing process,” Whitbeck explained. “As a first time author, not a national figure, this is a huge longshot.”
But even before he got to the publishing stage, Whitbeck struggled. He characterizes the act of writing a book as traumatic.
“There is no other way to describe it. You wake up in the middle of the night thinking ‘why am I doing this, no one could ever possibly be interested in this, the characters are all wrong, etc., etc.’…every possible thing you can think of to beat yourself over the head with. You agonize over it.
“But, if nothing else happens, at least I have the satisfaction of knowing I finished my book. Most people don’t.”
Having survived the agony of writing and the frustration that is the publishing process, Whitbeck is patiently waiting to hear back.
His novel, A Portion for Foxes, is loosely based on the circumstances surrounding the mid-1940s assassination (still unsolved) of Michigan Senator Warren Hooper. Sen. Hooper had been testifying to a grand jury concerning political corruption, and it is rumored that Republican operatives and the “Purple Gang,” a large Jewish mob organization, were involved in his murder.
The pivot point from which the book diverges from the real-life story is the possible involvement of a woman in the case. Police reports from the 1940s indicate that footprints at the scene of the crime were small enough to be those of a woman.
“When reading about the events, that point really stuck in my head,” said Whitbeck. “I took this idea, suppose it was a woman — suppose it was the senator’s wife — and from that idea wrote the book.”
The novel is a first-person account of a young lawyer’s return home to Lansing after having been wounded in WWII. Recovering in the hospital he meets and becomes involved with a gorgeous woman who happens to be married to a state senator. Subsequently, back at his job as a prosecutor, he is called to investigate that senator’s murder.
What progresses are pages of romance, intrigue and a recounting of the types of political corruption that were rampant in that era in Michigan.
Having placed A Portion for Foxes in the publishing process, Whitbeck almost immediately started on a second book, this time in the “legal thriller” genre. Thrillers have their own conventions, he explained. One is that “the bodies have to pile up” and the book has to have a certain amount of violence. Legal fiction readers, on the other hand, expect courtroom scenes and in-depth coverage of the legal process, which are provided in A Portion for Foxes.
One would expect that Judge Whitbeck’s day job — which has exposed him to hundreds of compelling and sometimes gruesome real-life tragedies — would give rise to great ideas for fiction, but Whitbeck says he hasn’t, so far, “borrowed material” from the cases he’s heard. He explains that although it wouldn’t present any ethical concerns, it would make him feel uneasy. But he does incorporate what he’s learned about police procedure and lingo into his writing.
Interestingly, his evening and weekend pursuits in fiction writing have, instead, had more influence in his career as a judge. Having gained confidence in recognizing and practicing good writing, Judge Whitbeck is careful when penning his legal opinions and chafes at much of current legal writing.
As his contribution to the State Bar this year, he offered to conduct a daylong course on arguing effectively — both in writing and orally — to judges.
“I developed an outline for the course, thinking like a writer,” he said. “You have to have a premise, a story line, a narrative arc — whatever you want to call it — the thing that carries you through the story when writing something.”
He believes many lawyers have lost sight of this necessity in advocating to judges. He wants lawyers, when they approach the bench, to understand the premise that holds their argument together so they don’t lose their audience.
Clearly, writing will continue to be a passion for Judge Whitbeck. He has no plans, however, to change career course to write fiction exclusively any time soon. His current term on the Court is up in late 2010, and he says he will most likely run again, just squeaking by the 70-years-old age limitation.
“I enjoy the job…and take my father’s experience into consideration,” explained Whitbeck. “He retired once and didn’t like it…then retired a second time but worked essentially full time dealing in rare coins.
“When I do eventually retire, I certainly can’t see sitting in my chair looking out the window. I’ve worked all my life, since I was 13. I would have to do something. And writing is something I really enjoy, so that’s what I’ll do.”
Bookworm Jean B. Eggemeyer owns communications and marketing firm Carillon Communications LLC, serving the business and association communities.
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