the CCR attorney who originally sought outside help in filing Bundy's appeals. "Sending Bundy's case from CCR was one of the worst decisions I've made as a deathworker," he wrote. In 1995, Nelson filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia against novelist John Grisham and his publisher Doubleday for copyright infringement. She alleged that Grisham's book The Chamber, "blatantly appropriated central themes, plot twists, characters and descriptive details" from Defending the Devil. In 1996, Judge Royce Lamberth dismissed the suit, calling the charges "meritless". A year later, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit unanimously dismissed Nelson's appeal, noting that it "does not warrant an opinion". Nelson was ordered to pay attorneys' fees for both parties. References 1952 births 21st-century American women American legal writers American women lawyers Lawyers from Washington, D.C. Living people University of Minnesota alumni University of Minnesota Law School alumni Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr associates