I am an experienced trial lawyer based in Charlotte. This is my personal blog. It is ostensibly about the study of “Law and Literature.” But it is also about lawyering and lessons learned from 25 years of loving the law, trials, and appeals; turning 50 and life thereafter; raising kids and trying to be a better husband and person; songwriting; Stoicism, Existentialism, and other philosophy; producing haiku; painting; writing a book; dogs; exercise; and gardening. All my outside of work interests and then some. Don’t worry – notwithstanding the broad panoply of topics here, what ties it together is my passion for being interested in what I do, and committing to do it to its fullest.
If you’re looking to see what I am about professionally, here is my law firm bio.
Over the years, I have formally studied both law and literature, taking a Bachelor’s in English and American Literature from Brown in 1998, and both a law degree and Master’s in English from Duke in 2001. For several years, as an adjunct professor, I taught a law school course about law and literature (in addition to teaching courses in white collar criminal law and trial practice).
But mostly what I’ve done for the past 25 years is practice law. And I have loved it. When I was in college, my mentor Arnold Weinstein (who was an excellent English professor – perhaps the best I have ever encountered, and I have encountered many exceptional ones) told me that I would be unhappy if I became a lawyer. He said: “You will feel as if you are living two lives.”
But that has not been my experience at all.
For one thing, as a lawyer I have met and helped more characters, in more odd and extreme situations, than any English professor could hope to read about in all the creative novels they could get around to reading. That said, reading so much literature prepared me to better understand the many characters I have helped, tried cases against, and worked with as a lawyer.
And I have been able to help many people, in a very direct way and while they are facing their worst fears and life challenges. Instead of reading novels or even writing them, I have been in the center of many stories — or at least met and learned from the protagonists (and supporting casts).
Law is the best career a caring and thoughtful person could have. I hope to be doing it for another three decades, and I hope nobody in my professional life will hold this blog against me as too personal or frivolous. And no, the reference to “professional life” in the preceding sentence does not mean that my professor was right and does not suggest an unpleasant existential dichotomy. I promise: it is not that I have too much free time. It is that I care how I spend that time. Writing this during the small part of my life that is not devoted to law or family means more to me than looking at television or other people’s recipes or subsequent suggestions for weight loss on social media.
Although I love the law, just as much I will always love books. Reading them. Interpreting them. Trying to see what they reveal about their authors’ vision of life, history, and philosophy. Learning how to write better — as a lawyer and otherwise — from them. I love literature. Seeing how the texts can make me a better lawyer, whether through improving my comprehension and writing skills, or by helping me understand how different people think. Examining how books and other writing can serve as a subtle (or blunt) tool for intellectual rebellion in these unprecedented political and social times.
And, just the same way, I love writing. In all styles. Not just the art of legal writing — and we will discuss that here — but any kind of writing. How can we do it best (or, to refine that, most meaningfully for each particular situation)? We will see.
For the most part, this blog is my humble “free time” offering to the field of “Law and Literature.” We will talk at length about what that field is, how it works, what it can do, and whether it matters.
I can be contacted through my law firm website. Otherwise, I may send a monthly email, but rather than “spam” people or put a sign up form here I will do this: If you want the monthly email from me, email me at terpeningwill@gmail.com and I’ll add you to my list. That way, I will only bother people who really want me to bother them.
Also, you might follow me on Instagram or YouTube. Or, obviously, read this blog from time to time.
And for initial background on Law and Literature, here is a syllabus from a law school course I taught long ago, and here is a PowerPoint introducing the field (as I see it).
Thanks for looking at the blog.
Will Terpening, Charlotte, January 2026.