GAWKER SLAYER: THE PROFESSIONAL AND PERSONAL ADVENTURES OF FAMED ATTORNEY CHARLES HARDER

A high-profile attorney discusses several of his more famous cases, mixing in assorted highlights of personal adventures.

Debut author Harder was born in 1969 and raised in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Encino. By his own account, his childhood was happy and relatively carefree, and included Hollywood-connected friends and classmates. His father, a business manager, maintained a credo that Harder still lives by: “Never give up, and find a way!” This motto got the author through the case that brought him national fame: Bollea v. Gawker. Gawker, a popular online tabloid, had obtained an explicit sex tape of professional wrestler and actor Terry Bollea, aka Hulk Hogan, which had been made without his knowledge, and the site published part of the video online. It would take four years of court battles, and millions of dollars in legal fees, for the case to reach resolution in 2016. Bollea had a wealthy backer to fund his lawsuit and hired Harder and his team, who scored an enormous monetary award for their client; this had the effect of putting Gawker out of business. Another victory came when Harder and his partners, working on behalf of celebrity Halle Berry, contributed to the development of California legislation to protect the children of the famous from paparazzi. Harder is at his best when he shares the behind-the-scenes drama of these cases, as well as the intricacies of legal arguments. His client roster of Hollywood celebs peppers the book with enjoyable glitter. His mission, he declares, is to fight for victims of unscrupulous media, both print and electronic, and in 2017, he successfully handled first lady Melania Trump’s defamation case against the British Daily Mail. The author’s clear admiration for her and her husband, President Donald Trump, seems to fuel Harder’s broader criticism of the New York Times and the Washington Post, and his attacks call to mind familiar partisan claims of “fake news.” He also criticizes the lack of positive media coverage of Melania Trump’s “Be Best” anti-bullying campaign, but without addressing common accusations that her husband engaged in prolific Twitter bullying himself.

A legally intriguing memoir, but its good-versus-evil framing strikes occasional discordant notes.