Ambitious Filipina lawyer is protagonist in David Lat’s legal thriller

Filipino-American Audrey Coyne is a recent Yale Law School graduate who dreams of someday working as a clerk for the U.S. Supreme Court. Audrey moves to California to serve as a clerk for Judge Christina Wong Stinson, a highly regarded appeals-court judge who is Audrey’s stepping stone to a Supreme Court clerkship. While working for the powerful and influential Judge Stinson, Audrey discovers that high ambitions come with a high price.

It is a plot from David Lat’s novel, “Supreme Ambitions,” not gossip fodder in the FilAm community. On January 12, Lat, a legal blogger, had a book signing at the Philippine Center for his first novel which The New York Times calls a “thriller for lawyers.”

Having a Filipino as a central character in a book is very rare, according to Consul General Mario de Leon Jr. He said Lat’s novel offers a “fascinating insight into the Filipino-American family cultural mindset.”

“Lat’s novel is an inspiring example of the accomplishments made by Filipino-Americans in the legal and literature industry in the U.S.,” he added.

Lat is a blogger for the popular legal website Above the Law, which he founded. His writing has also appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, New York magazine, and the New York Observer. Before pursuing a career in the media, David worked as a federal prosecutor in Newark, New Jersey; a litigation associate at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, in New York; and a law clerk to Judge Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

He is a graduate of Regis High School, Harvard College and Yale Law School, where he served as an editor of the Yale Law Journal.

FilAm author David Lat (left) signs a copy of ‘Supreme Ambitions’ for Consul General Mario de Leon, Jr.