I recently had an opportunity to talk with Steven B. Epstein, a board certified specialist in family law and a certified arbitrator and DRC-certified family financial mediator.

Steve is a partner at Poyner Spruill in Raleigh. He is also an author, having written four true crime thrillers: Murder on Birchleaf Drive, Evil at Lake Seminole, Extreme Punishment, and Deadly Heist, all published by Black Lyon Publishing LLC.

Q: Please tell me where you attended college and law school, and a little bit about your path to your current position.

I’m a proud double Tar Heel, racing through Chapel Hill from 1983-1990. I then clerked for Judge W. Earl Britt (Eastern District of North Carolina), was fortunate enough to be the great Charles Becton’s associate for two years, was the director of legal writing at the University of Illinois College of Law for another two years, and then spent 14 years at Hunton & Williams in Raleigh before joining Poyner Spruill in 2010, where I’ve lived happily ever after.

Q: Why did you pursue becoming a board certified specialist?

When I began practicing family law in 2014 (midlife crisis #1), I became aware of the family law specialization designation and set out to do everything I could to qualify at the earliest possible juncture. Being a board certified specialist signifies that you have achieved a high level of knowledge, skill, and experience, so it’s an honor in and of itself. Perhaps more important to your career, holding that designation makes it more likely clients will seek you out and other lawyers will refer work to you.

Q: Was the certification process valuable to you in any way?

Very much so. I learned more about family law studying for the exam (because I was scared to death I would fail) than in all the family law CLEs I’ve taken over the last ten-plus years. Thankfully, much of that knowledge has stuck since I passed the exam in 2020.

Q: What skills are often overlooked but critical to success in your practice area?

Family law attorneys are in court, trying cases, all the time. Even though I was a civil litigator for over 20 years before migrating to family law, I only averaged about one trial per year. I tried 11 family law cases in 2023 alone. Therefore, you have to stay really sharp on the Rules of Evidence and how they address new types of evidence, such as text messages, Google Nest videos, GPS data from tracking devices, etc. Another critically important facet of family law is order drafting. Whether we resolve cases by settlement or through trial, it falls on the attorneys to draft the orders a judge will ultimately sign. The language contained in the order is crucial because it may be the basis for a contempt or modification proceeding, or be critical on appeal, so making sure an order is well-drafted is extremely important.

Q: Tell us about your work as a true crime author?

How I go about writing true crime is very similar to how I prepare a trial court or appellate brief. I try to learn everything I can from every available source—which includes court materials such as exhibits, transcripts, and briefs, in addition to media accounts, documentaries, and interviews. Then I tell the story in the most engaging way I know how. Though I do much of my true crime research and writing in the evenings, early morning hours, and weekends, I’m sometimes mixing an interview or writing—or filming for a true crime documentary—during normal work hours. I’ve gotten more adept at shifting gears from my day job to my side hustle as I’ve written more books.

Q: What inspired you to write about true crime?

That was midlife crisis #2. I really had no intention of becoming a writer, much less a true crime writer. I’m neither a criminal lawyer nor a true crime junkie. And I’d never attempted to write anything that wasn’t directly connected to my job. But there was something about the Michelle Young murder case in Raleigh that utterly fascinated me as the case evolved over the years. I literally woke up one day and said to myself, “I think I’m going to write a book about it.” I was essentially daring myself to get out of my comfort zone and do something I’d never done before. I was so certain I’d either quit or fail; to save myself the embarrassment, I only told a couple of people what I was doing. The notion that I’d complete the book (Murder on Birchleaf Drive), get it published, write three more books, appear on true crime TV documentaries—if you had told me all of that at the beginning, I would have laughed out loud.

Q: How do you choose which true crime story to pursue in your writing?

When I decided my writing experience would be more than “one and done,” I started listening to true crime podcasts and watching documentaries to get ideas for new books. Though people are always suggesting topics to me, I rely on stories that people much smarter than me have already concluded will resonate with true crime audiences.

Q: Your fourth and most recent book, Deadly Heist, just came out this year. Do you have another book in the works yet?

I do. I’m working on a book that has eerie similarities to the Michael Peterson/staircase murder. It is set in Syracuse, New York, and involves a 61-year-old mother of four, Leslie Neulander, who supposedly fell in her shower and died from her injuries. Though her death was initially ruled accidental, her husband, a successful obstetrician, was eventually tried for her murder. I’m well into the research, have already interviewed over a dozen people, and am working on travel arrangements for a scouting trip to Syracuse. I’m so early in the process, though, I doubt this one will be published before 2027.

Q: What is the most valuable lesson you’ve learned that you didn’t learn in formal education?

I would say the most valuable lesson is one I didn’t begin to appreciate until recently: if you strive for perfection, you are guaranteed to constantly fail and then beat yourself up over those failures. Though that pursuit of perfection helped me do well in education and my career, any success I had was fleeting and outweighed by the disappointment of my failures—when I fell short of the illusory goal of perfection. My new mantra is “good enough.” It allows me to glide through life happier and with much more satisfaction than in my perfection-striving days. I wish I would have learned that lesson 30-40 years ago. 

For more information about the specialization program, please visit our website at nclawspecialists.gov.