Allison Leotta

Allison Leotta is an American novelist, former prosecutor and blogger, best known for her popular legal crime thrillers. Her books have won various awards and have been placed on multiple best-seller lists. She has been dubbed the "female John Grisham" but has stated that she instead wishes John Grisham to be dubbed "the male Allison Leotta".

Leotta graduated from Michigan State University and Harvard Law School and worked as a federal prosecutor in Washington, D.C., where she specialized in sex crimes, domestic violence and crimes against children. In 2011, she left the Justice Department to become an author full time, writing acclaimed novels such as Law of Attraction, Discretion, Speak of the Devil, A Good Killing, and The Last Good Girl. She currently has TV reviews being carried by the Huffington Post as well running a legal blog known as the Prime-Time Crime Review which the American Bar Association hailed as "one of the best legal blogs in America".

As a child, Leotta always had an interest in becoming a prosecutor, due to the stories constantly told to her by her father, where he spoke to her in great detail about his past experiences as a prosecutor and stories he had from work. She then went on to attend James Madison College at Michigan State where she completed her Bachelor of Arts in international relations, then Harvard Law School to receive her J.D. degree. After law school, she then clerked for Judge Algenon Marbley, who is a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio. She then ventured onto the Justice Department through the Department of Justice Honours Program, where she specialized in consumer litigation and consumer fraud cases. The first manuscript in question had to be vetted by six senior prosecutors and the first assistant U.S. Attorney. After the approval of her manuscripts, Simon & Schuster then bought her book. After being told by her publisher to write a sequel to her first book due to good sales and reviews from critics and readers, Leotta decided to give up prosecuting and resigned from her job at the U.S. Attorney's Office in D.C to become a full-time writer, continuing on to write Discretion. Leotta has also stated not only from her law career she has drawn inspiration, but she has also been inspired by the authors such as Jane Austen, John Grisham and Scott Turow as well as The Wire (an American crime drama series). Discretion, which opens with an escort being murdered in a congressman's Capitol hideaway was in fact inspired by the D.C. Madam case as well as the numerous prostitutes prosecuted by Leotta. Her books have been hailed by USA Today "as real as it gets" and she relates the realism of her novels to the fact that she draws on her real life experiences as a sex crimes prosecutor as well as the help she has gotten from her colleagues with regards to legal questions and investigative techniques, such as Glenn Kirschner, the former homicide chief at the U.S. Attorney's Office if she wanted to write in detail about a homicide case. She also is on the board of directors of the Mystery Writers of America.

Online works Leotta runs a blog called the Prime-Time Crime Review which was named one of the best legal blogs in America by the American Bar Association. She is also a contributor to the Huffington Post where she is in charge of reality checking television crime dramas. She has stated that there is a difference between people learning their crime facts and what goes on in courtroom dramas for TV shows, and how the two are so drastically different. She has also provided legal commentary and articles for outlets such as CNN, MSNBC, Time, Cosmopolitan, Larry King, and the Detroit Free Press. Leotta has expressed her views towards sexual assault in numerous articles, the most prominent one being the one written for Time magazine, where she states that the saying of "He said, she said" which states that when a woman accuses a man of sexual assault or rape, there is no true way to discern who is in fact lying, is an extremely damaging statement which has resulted in the exclusion of victims of sexual assault and rape from the criminal justice system. According to Leotta, this exception is steeped in misogyny and has prevented many rape cases in the past from being prosecuted and that this problem needs to be corrected immediately, to treat the testimonies of victims of sex crimes the same as other crimes, and not undermine women who come forward as "liars". She then goes on to comment that sexual assault cases will always reveal much more information if they are investigated properly, and that the fear and doubt many have towards a women's testimony comes from the fact that men in society are scared of losing power. She gives facts such that even if corroboration is no longer a requirement in sexual assault cases, DNA samples are often looked upon as solid evidence in such cases and in many cases, survivors, for a multitude of reasons, delay the reporting of such assaults (or never report it at all). Therefore, other types of equally important evidence should be considered and looked at, such as eyewitnesses, past phone calls and text messages and many more. These pieces of evidence may not directly prove what happened on the day itself, but will either undermine or support the credibility and story of the victim, shedding more light on the case and whom to believe. She has also given advice to women regarding reporting sexual assault and how to go about doing so in the Cosmopolitan article she wrote. In the article she wrote for Detroit Free Press, she states that from all her years of prosecuting in sex crimes, 80% of reported sex crimes have been committed by acquaintances of the women, with alcohol being the main tools such men use to commit the assault. Therefore, ending off the article by stating the need for women to be cautious about who they choose to keep company with as they might be unsure to their true predatory nature. She has also expressed in many interviews about how sex crimes are hardly ever reported, especially when men are the victims, with the culture of "victim blaming" being a main cause in the under reporting of such crimes.

Personal life Leotta lives outside Washington, D.C., with her husband Michael Leotta, the ex appellate chief at the Maryland U.S. Attorney's Office. Her husband helps Leotta in reading her manuscript drafts and gives editing advice. The couple have two children together. "Best of the Best Summer Books" by O, The Oprah Magazine (A Good Killing) "Best of the Year" from The Strand Magazine "Best of the Year" from The Romance Reviews "Best of the Year" from Suspense Magazine