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Compton Born Attorney Turns to Writing Legal Thrillers
By
Gary Walker
Bulletin
Staff Writer
One
would think that after working as a news reporter and an attorney
at a high-profile law firm that there aren’t many more professional
hurdles to climb. But then you probably haven’t met Pamela
Samuels-Young.
Now embarking on her third career, Samuels -Young is hoping to soon
crack the hard-to-enter pantheon of successful novelists. Her first offering,
a legal thriller entitled Every Reasonable Doubt from BET Books, hits stores
in February 2006, and she can hardly wait.
If her book proves to be a hit with readers, she will join a select
group of legal fiction writers like John Grisham, Lisa Scolatinni, Scott
Turrow and Steve Martini, whose tales of courtroom intrigue, ethical challenges
and runaway juries have enthralled readers for decades. Her agent, Sha
Shana Crichton of Crichton & Associates believes that the potential
is definitely there. “(Every Reasonable Doubt) has this wonderful
cast of characters, and Pamela has a great handle on them,” Crichton
enthused by telephone last week. “I think that she is a natural talent
for the legal fiction genre, and the book is definitely what you would
call a page-turner.”
Her main character is Vernetta Henderson, an African-American lawyer,
a first in legal fiction.
A Compton native, Samuels-Young recalled growing up in Hub City where
she lived in the same home that her parents bought over four decades ago. “It’s
the only place that I’ve ever known,” the author began in an
interview at Toyota Motor Sales Inc. in Torrance, where she is employed
as the company’s managing counsel in labor and employment matters. “It
was great growing up there, and I had good teachers and a good support
system.”
“And that’s why with all of my publicity materials I always mention
that I’m from Compton, because I’m proud to be from Compton,” she
continued. “Compton is responsible for who I am.”
Journalism was Samuels-Young’s first love, and she again credits the teachers
who nurtured her passion for reading and writing at an early age for pursuing
that discipline.
“I can remember that summer going to Compton Library and checking out James
Baldwin, Toni Morrison and others, and for me this opened up a whole new world
for me
that I wasn’t seeing in the books that I was being given at school.”
Perhaps the book that most affected the then 12-year-old Samuels-Young at an
early age was Claude Brown’s “Man-child in the Promised Land,” a
book that she sheepishly recalls “taking without asking” at her aunt’s
home. “It was the first book that I can remember that had black characters
in it,” she recollected.
“That summer, those books, that moment of finding ‘Black Like Me’ were
catalysts that sent me into another direction,” she believes. “When
you read about people from different areas of the world, some like you and some
not like you, it gives you the perspective that anything is possible,” she
related.
Journalism and the Law
After graduating from Compton High, the budding journalist enrolled at the University
of Southern California, intent on becoming a newspaper reporter. There she worked
on the Daily Trojan and had the opportunity to fine-tuned her writing skills.
In addition, she helped launch a new publication, an African-American newspaper
called “All Us We,” where she was the paper’s first editor.
There she met students who became her friends for life, such as Serafini Johnson,
who later became one of the co-creators of two UPN television shows, “Moesha” and “The
Parkers.” She recalls the experiences at USC as a very important time in
her life.
“During my junior year, an internship that I had at the Los Angeles Times
in Washington,
D.C. bureau fell through,” Samuels-Young recounted. She found her way to
the local ABC affiliate, WJLA where that experience pushed her toward the broadcasting
side of journalism. After taking more broadcasting courses her senior year and
graduating from USC with a degree in journalism, Samuels-Young enrolled in the
Master’s program in broadcast journalism school at prestigious Northwestern
University in Illinois. During that time she met a producer from WXYZ (just like
the alphabet) who had an opening for a production assistant. Although the job
was not very glamorous, Samuels-Young made the best of it, and three months later
was given a promotion to news writer. She worked in that capacity for three years
before she got homesick and returned to Los Angeles where she landed at KCBS
for another three years, where writing under tight deadlines gave her the experience
that she would serve her well as an attorney, a career that she began gravitating
toward while watching the popular law drama “L.A. Law.”
“It seemed like a career for really smart people,” Samuels-Young
said. A disagreement with a supervisor motivated her to call her alma mater and
apply
to the University of California at Berkley Law School, where she was accepted
that fall. During her final year there she clerked at O’Melveny & Myers,
one of the elite law firms in the nation.
Samuels-Young was invited back after she passed the bar, where she worked for
six years, eventually rising to Special Counsel status, one step away from becoming
a partner in the prominent firm—no small feat for an African-American woman
from Compton.
During her infrequent free time, she began writing her first book. “I loved
reading legal fiction, but I noticed that there weren’t a lot of prominent
African-American characters in the books that I was reading,” she explained.
After many starts and stops, four years after leaving O’Melveny & Myers
she has won awards for her first book and now is working on her second tome,
due early next year. Both of her previous careers have proved invaluable in her
new venture.
“Working as a news writer taught me to write quickly and concisely, and
as an
attorney I have some great stories and experiences from the legal profession,
and using those talents from previous careers has helped my come full circle.”
“They always say to write what you know,” she added, “So I’m
writing what I know. I always intend for my books to have a legal character in
them, and that they are identified as legal fiction writing.”
Those who know the attorney-turned author best say that she hasn’t changed
much during the time that they have known her, that essentially success has not
changed her. “She was always the type of person who inspired others to
do well, to always go to class,” remembers Renee Cunningham, who has known
the author since junior high school. “I didn’t have a lot of friends
growing up, and she was really nice to me when we met,” Cunningham, who
works for a mortgage brokerage firm, continued. “One of the things that
stands out about her to me is that she has never forgotten where she came from,
and that her heart is still the same.”
Samuels-Young hopes to eventually leave the legal profession and write full-time. “She’s
going to do well,” her friend Cunningham predicted. “Writing is her
passion.”
Her first book is dedicated to her parents, John and Pearl Samuels. “To
my mother, who taught me the power of prayer, and to my father, who taught me
that hard work always pays off,” the dedication reads. “Those two
principles are the ones that have empowered me in everything that I have done,” she
elucidated.
By all accounts, she has learned those lessons well. And the world of legal fiction
will have a new enthusiastic member in its fraternity.
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