Biography of Rikki Klieman

She remains Of Counsel to the Boston, Massachusetts law firm of Klieman, Lyons, Schindler and Gross where she specializes in criminal trial and appellate practice as well as civil litigation.  She received her J.D. from Boston University School of Law in 1975.  Prior to her legal career, she was a theater major at Northwestern University and became a professional actress.  Following law school, she served as a law clerk for the Honorable Walter Jay Skinner of the United States District Court of Massachusetts, and as a prosecutor with the Middlesex and Norfolk County District Attorney's offices.  Before creating her own practice, she was a partner at Friedman & Atherton, a commercial law firm in Boston.

In 1983, she was named one of the five most outstanding women trial lawyers in the country by TIME Magazine.  She is often the subject of magazine and newspaper articles and she was profiled by CNN.  She has been featured on television on Today, Good Morning America, Miller's Court and the evening news.  She has been interviewed on numerous radio and television programs on various aspects of criminal and civil law and procedure including, among others, The McLaughlin Group, 20/20 and a Nightline Special Report on rape hosted by Peter Jennings.

As a result of defending David and Ginger Twitchell, Christian Science parents charged with manslaughter for the death of their child who received spiritual healing rather than medical care, as well as representing Katherine Ann Power, a fugitive of twenty-three years from the Vietnam War era, Ms. Klieman appeared on 60 minutes, 20/20, the BBC and virtually all national and local Boston news programs.

Ms. Klieman is a member of the Adjunct Faculty at Columbia Law School, teaching "Trial Strategies In Major Current Cases." She was a Professor at Boston University School of Law where she taught trial practice for many years.  She also lectures across the country on aspects of the legal system and has taught trial advocacy at Gerry Spence's Trial Lawyers College, the National Criminal Defense College, University of Virginia Trial Advocacy Institute, Western Trial Advocacy Institute, Northwestern University's Short Course for Criminal Defense Lawyers and the Intensive Trial Advocacy Program at Harvard.  She has published articles on criminal defense practice and contributed to a book, Women Trial Lawyers, published by Prentice Hall in 1987 as well as a book on Drug Law published in 1993.  She writes the bi-annual supplement for Representing Witnesses Before Federal Grand Juries.  She is currently co-editing a book on cross-examination called Take the Witness. 

She is featured in a chapter of Good Will Toward Men by Jack Kammer, published in 1994, and in the national best seller, A Civil Action by Jonathan Harr.  She also appeared as herself, a Court TV anchor, in the films The Cable Guy and An American Tragedy (based on the O.J. Simpson case.  She appeared as a reporter in the film version of A Civil Action with John Travolta and as a lawyer in the film Fifteen Minutes with Robert DeNiro and Ed Burns. She is a member of SAG and Actors' Equity.

She served on the Advisory Committee to the U.S. Supreme Court on the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure and on the Board of Directors of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.  She currently serves on the American Bar Association's National Conference of Lawyers and the Media as well as on the Board of Visitors for Boston University School of Law and the Council of 100 (outstanding alumnae) for Northwestern University.

In addition, Ms. Klieman lectures to various business and bar associations as well as school groups on "Powerful Communication from the Courtroom to the Boardroom,"  "Theatre in the Courtroom,"  "You Can Have It All, But Not All the Time" as well as commenting on legal and political issues including the ongoing debate of "Cameras in the Courtroom" and "Law and the Media."  She is working on her autobiography, Fairy Tales Can Come True - How a Driven Woman Changed Her Fate to be published in 2003.

She lives with her husband, Los Angeles Chief of Police, William Bratton in New York and L.A.