James P. Kimmel

James Kimmel, Jr. is a novelist, lawyer, scholar and advocate who focuses on the intersections of law and spirituality and law and psychology. He received his doctorate in jurisprudence from the University of Pennsylvania, where he was a member of the University of Pennsylvania Law Review. He received his B.S. degree summa cum laude from the Schreyer Honors College of the Pennsylvania State University. Early in his legal career, Jim served as a law clerk to a federal court judge. Later, as an attorney at one of the preeminent law firms in the United States and in his own legal practice, he appeared before courts across the country on behalf of a wide variety of clients, from indigent families and prisoners seeking better conditions of confinement to wealthy individuals and large corporations. Recognized as an expert in written advocacy and legal analysis, he was retained as a consultant by hundreds of other lawyers and law firms to assist them in developing legal strategies and drafting legal arguments. He was an early pioneer in training lawyers in India to provide legal research to American law firms, and he holds a United States Patent as the inventor of the first online legal research assignment and ordering system, which helped make this possible. Despite his professional success, over time Jim began to experience a conflict between his most deeply held spiritual beliefs and his duties as a lawyer. The search for a resolution to this conflict led him into the fields of law and spirituality, law and psychology, and, ultimately, into writing. His journey is chronicled in his book, Suing for Peace.