Tell us about The Good Lawyer. What’s it about?
In short, it is about a young lawyer’s crisis of conscience. The longer version can be had almost everywhere the book is advertised:

INSPIRED BY A TRUE STORY A young, ambitious lawyer is eager to prove he is better than the father who abandoned him and worthy of the devoted mother who raised him beyond the siren call of the mobster dominated family he grew up in. Working as a Bronx Legal Aid Attorney he learns how to twist the system, how to become an unbeatable defense lawyer, and he his peacock proud of his perfect record-not a single conviction. But it’s 1982. The Spiderman rapist is on the loose and New York City is a city in fear. When an outraged rape victim commits suicide right before his eyes, searching for absolution, he grabs the headline case of a teacher’s aide accused of molesting three students. Armed with a firm belief in his client’s innocence, he knocks the pegs out from under the prosecution’s case. When one of the children turns up dead, he discovers that his client may be strangely connected to the Spiderman. Digging deeper, horrifying revelations about his family’s past collide with the true identity of the sadistic sociopath behind the Spiderman’s rampage. In the process, this good lawyer comes face-to-face with his greatest conflict and deepest fear: to win, really win-save the city and even the woman he loves-must he sacrifice every principle he believes in and embrace his family’s mafia past to become judge, jury, and executioner?

What genre is it?
Legal Thriller or just Thriller.

What kind of readers will it appeal to?
All adults and mature teenagers.

Complete this sentence for us: If you like ___________, you’ll love The Good Lawyer.
A good thriller.

Tell us a bit more about lead character, Nick Mannino.
Nick is the good lawyer in every way. He is quite adept at the practice of law and getting the best result possible for every client in his charge. He is also a good person. It is his desire to do good, combined with trappings of youth, that become his undoing, to put it mildly.  I have no doubt that Nick’s story would not have been the same had he been older, wiser, and more experienced.

On a personal level, Nick is every good man: wholesome, honest, with great integrity. He the product of  humble beginnings. He never forgets where he came from and who he is. He is smart, strong, compassionate and caring, but were he not so young and also so foolish, there would have been no story to tell.

How much of this story is fiction? What proportion of it is fact?
I get this question all the time. About half really happened.

The courtroom scenes in the book really come alive. Have they been over-dramatized for the sake of fiction or can it really be that interesting?
The courtroom scenes in the book, including the scene in the grand jury are almost exactly as they happened. The suicide scene at the very beginning of the book is purely for  drama‘s sake.

Tell us more about you and your background.
Everything there is to know about me is on the Amazon site for the book or on the Author’s page of the book, which is quite a lot. I even wrote a statement explaining why I wrote The Good Lawyer. I also include on newer editions of the novel a note of thanks to my readers. I hope to do my best to repay them for their wonderful support with more novels that I can be proud of and they will enjoy. I hope these references suffice.

From Thomas Benigno’s Amazon Author page:

As a Legal Aid Attorney in the South Bronx in 1982, I handled the grittiest of cases. These cases didn’t just include the run-of-the-mill burglaries and robberies or drug deals at a time when miles of square blocks there were leveled to rubble and burnt out buildings seemed to be everywhere. There were much more horrible crimes there. And I was…… defender of all of it.

But this is not why I became a lawyer. I wanted to do some good–help the innocent, give the guilty poor a second chance-a chance for a better life outside of prison.

I graduated in the top 11% of my law school class. Tried a case in my 3rd year and won. Took the job at Legal Aid in the Bronx to hone my skills for a few years prior to entering private practice. There were high hopes for me. I started out on fire, getting more cases dismissed in Criminal Court than just about anyone. I was cocky, a bit arrogant. I had the makings of one damn good trial lawyer. For my age, I was convinced there was no one better. I had also fallen in love. Didn’t think I needed to study for the bar. Then I flunked. When I did pass I was on a mission to prove myself. Failing was humiliating. So I took on the most difficult of cases intent on winning at almost any cost. And I did win, time and again. Rapists, child molesters and drug dealers were freed, and all my doing. Finally, I couldn’t take it any more, accolades and all. I was a young man drowning in the conscience of my own success.

This was not the boy my Mom raised me to be. She purposely kept me away from my mob connected relatives who were now dropping like flies in burnt out Cadillacs and after hour joints, winding up charred remains of flesh, stuffed in garbage cans, wrapped in plastic.
Then a case came through the system. Headlines. No prior arrest record. Horrible crime. He could be innocent.

This is why I became a lawyer- to champion for the innocent man.
And so life set me up for the greatest fall ever. Years later I couldn’t shake what I had done, so I wrote it down. The original title of my novel was “The Confession.” Then Grisham came out with it. So why not then…”The Good Lawyer.”

Have you got a website where readers can keep up with your work? How can we follow you on Facebook and/or Twitter?
Facebook.com/TheGoodLawyer
@ThomasBenigno.

What’s next?
The sequel, which takes place twenty-five years later.  It is based on true crimes currently occurring on Long Island- the Jones Beach murders. I am currently writing it.

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Enjoyed this interview? Then check out our interview with Douglas Dorow.