A family law attorney by day becomes a best-selling true crime writer at night
By Michele Lynn
Attorney Steven B. Epstein (BA ‘87, JD ‘90) never expected to become an author. As a partner at Raleigh law firm Poyner Spruill since 2010, Epstein—a board certified family law specialist—spends most of his days handling divorce and custody cases and litigating civil issues, such as product liability. But one morning in 2017, Epstein woke up with the idea to write about the murder of Michelle Young, a pregnant Progress Energy accountant killed by her husband, Jason.
Epstein felt connected to the case, which occurred in Raleigh where he lives and practices. “I had an associate who came to work one morning with an ashen expression, who told me about Michelle Young’s murder, because he lived on the same street as the Youngs,” says Epstein. “Michelle Young had a life trajectory that was similar to mine: we were both from Long Island, came to North Carolina for college, became professionals, married Southerners, and found that our life with our Southern spouse wasn’t working out.”
When he learned that no book had been penned about the case, Epstein began writing the manuscript for Murder on Birchleaf Drive: The True Story of the Michelle Young Murder Case, which was published in 2019. The true crime tale details the trials, appeals, and conviction of Jason Young. While another book was not in Epstein’s original plan, the success of his first book prompted his publisher to ask for more. Two more true crime books followed: Evil at Lake Seminole: The Shocking True Story Surrounding the Disappearance of Mike Williams in 2020 and Extreme Punishment: The Chilling True Story of Acclaimed Law Professor Dan Markel’s Murder in 2022.
commencement in 1990
Whether he is writing or litigating, Epstein’s primary focus is on the courtroom. “The most fascinating part of the justice system is what happens in the courtroom,” he says. “Having tried a number of cases, I know that the way court proceedings are usually portrayed in books and on the screen is pretty inaccurate. One of my goals is to change that.”
In fact, it was time spent in the courtroom during his own custody litigation that prompted him to add family law to his practice in 2014, which until then had focused on general civil litigation. “As I sat in courtrooms waiting for my own case to be heard, I watched other people suffer though theirs and often saw children caught in the middle,” he says. “I felt a calling to become involved and to try to make a difference.”
While new to the world of book publishing, Epstein has long been focused on writing. Earlier in his career, he worked as the director of legal writing at the University of Illinois College of Law. His legal journey has also included a judicial clerkship with the Honorable W. Earl Britt in the Eastern District of North Carolina and work at two other Raleigh law firms.
Epstein says that his time at Carolina, both as an undergraduate and law student, helped sow the seeds of his success. “The connections that I have to this day are shaped by my having been at UNC which has helped me, both in my career as a lawyer and my side hustle as a writer,” he says. “My first book, which was written about a local crime, has several characters who went to Carolina Law.”
Epstein notes that the trauma of a crumbling marriage was at the heart of his first three books. “I find fascinating the conflict between two people who start out intensely in love but who then become so enraged that murder becomes the answer,” he says. “Each of the cases I take on as a divorce lawyer, unfortunately, has that same potential.” For his fourth book, however, he’s tackling a crime of an entirely different character: the Father’s Day 1991 bank heist in downtown Denver in which four security guards were murdered in cold blood.
Epstein has written a happy ending to his own tale, remarrying in 2016 and enjoying a blended family of five children, ages 19 to 27. While he enjoys his career as an attorney, now 33 years in, he beams with excitement when talking about his writing. “I don’t think I fully appreciated how much I loved writing until I did my first book,” he says. “My guess is that my love affair with writing is only going to grow in the years to come.”
