Paul is a graduate of Penn State University where he majored in journalism and the University of Miami Law School where he majored in the swimming pool.
Author and Hero Both Penn State Alumni
So both the author and his fictional hero Jake Lassiter are Penn State Alumni. (So is Paul’s son Michael).
On its “Penn State People” page, Wikipedia lists Paul under “Entertainment and Media” and Jake under “Fictional Penn State Alumni.”
“Jake Lassiter, the hero of the series of legal thrillers written by Paul Levine, played linebacker for Coach Joe Paterno before attending night law school, passing the Bar exam on his fourth try, and becoming a hard-nosed Miami trial lawyer.”
Penn State Alumni Award…for Paul, not Jake
Paul is the recipient of Penn State’s Distinguished Alumnus Award and has served as an Alumni Fellow in the university’s College of Communications.
Both are Miami Grads, Too
Both author and hero also are graduates of the University of Miami Law School. One difference. Paul passed the bar exam on his first try, Jake on his fourth and that might have been a computer glitch.
At Miami, Paul also served on the national championship moot court team and was an editor of the Law Review.
Paul was a trial lawyer with the mammoth, filthy rich international law firm of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, where he did not even pretend to know all his partners’ names. He specialized in “complex litigation,” cases so abstruse that even lawyers charging 500 bucks an hour didn’t fully understand them. Paul tried hundreds of cases and handled appeals at every level, including the Supreme Court. Along the way, he filed expense accounts nearly as creative as his legal briefs.
Paul says he enjoys writing more than lawyering because he no longer keeps time sheets and gets to work in his underwear. For 13 years, he lived in the hills of Southern California, which he claims are populated by rattlesnakes and coyotes, and those are just the Hollywood agents. Now, he resides in Miami, where the mosquitoes are biting, but the fish ain’t.