Nicolas Kublicki

Nicolas Kublicki (pronounced Koo-Blitz-Key) was born in Los Angeles, California in 1966 of a French mother and a Polish father (in 1998, Israel's Yad Vashem Foundation awarded his father the Righteous Gentile Medal for hiding and saving a Jewish woman during the Nazi occupation of Poland in World War II).

Nick graduated from the Lycée Français de Los Angeles in 1983 and obtained his BA in International Relations from UCLA in 1987. After graduating from college, he served as a Capitol Hill lobbyist on defense and national security affairs for two years. He obtained a JD from Pepperdine University School of Law in 1992 and an LLM in Environmental Law from George Washington University Law School in 1993. He is admitted to the Bars of California, the District of Columbia, and the United States Supreme Court.

After serving in the Office of Policy and the Environmental Enforcement Section of the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., Nick returned to his native Los Angeles to practice real estate finance law at Buchalter, Nemer, Fields & Younger before joining Ervin, Cohen & Jessup LLP in Beverly Hills, where he was made partner in 2002. While at ECJ, he concentrated on real estate and environmental law, including purchase and sale, leasing, land use, contaminated property review and remediation, title issues, and construction. Over the course of his legal career, Nick completed over $2 billion in real estate transactions.

Nick has spoken at a variety of conferences, including at a United Nations conference on environmental finance issues at the Asian Development Bank in Manila, Philippines and a conference of Latin American attorneys general at the University of Texas law School.

Since 2002, Nick has taught Real Estate Transactions each spring as an adjunct professor at Pepperdine University School of Law. Summarizing his teaching philosophy, he says: "I teach my students what I wish someone had taught me when I started practicing real estate law. I don't hide the ball and I focus on the practical aspects of real estate transactions."

Nick left his law partnership in 2003 to manage and expand a portfolio of apartment buildings in Los Angeles, for which he now serves as counsel. In 2007, he joined the Beverly Hills office of Sotheby's International Realty as a Broker Associate, where he focuses on the purchase and sale of single family residences and apartment buildings in the Los Angeles area for American and international clients. He is a member of the National Association of Realtors®, the California Association of Realtors®, and the Beverly Hills/Greater Los Angeles Association of Realtors®.

Nick's love of writing predates his legal, academic, and brokerage career. "I fell in love with writing ever since writing stories as a kid during summer vacations, when my friends were swimming or hiking," he explains. He admits to regularly cutting English classes at UCLA to write short stories in the library.

During law school, Nick combined his passion for writing and his interest in law and worked on the Pepperdine Law Review--the school's scholarly law journal--and was later elected Articles Editor. He won Best Brief in the Vincent S. Dalsimer Moot Court Competition at Pepperdine University School of Law and has since published articles on a variety of legal and business topics (see 'Home' above).

While searching for his first law firm job after law school, he was watching a television documentary about the history of the diamond trade on PBS and thought: "I have to write a novel about this." He was instantly hooked and started researching and writing The Diamond Conspiracy.

Wanting to become a novelist and actually becoming one was not that simple, he soon realized. Working long, demanding hours as a lawyer required him to write in his spare time. It took him nine long years to complete and edit The Diamond Conspiracy, which received rave reviews from trade reviewers and fellow authors.

Since then, the book has been reprinted as a hardcover, published in paperback in the U.S., in German as Das Monopol (The Monopoly) in 2004, in Portuguese as Conspiração Diamante (The Diamond Conspiracy) in 2005, and in Thai as ตัดเหลี่ยมเพชร, (The Diamond Conspiracy) in 2008.

Nick recently finished his second Patrick Carlton thriller, The Saudi Conspiracy (for which no publication date is yet available) and is editing a third, The Secret Bankers.

As the saying goes, all work and no fun makes for a dull life (and dull writing). Since 1997, Nick has served as president of the Good Shepherd Church (Beverly Hills) Conference of the St. Vincent de Paul Society, an international Catholic charity that helps the poor and those who have suffered catastrophic circumstances, regardless of their creed. In 2006, the local group made and distributed nearly 4,000 lunches to the homeless, sent 15 underprivileged children to summer camp, and helped 15 people avoid homelessness. "I am so proud of our volunteers," he notes. "It is true that charity is its own reward," he adds, "yet it also has unexpected benefits. I met my wife at one of the board meetings." In 2006, he was appointed as a member of the church's Pastoral Council.

In 2005, Nick joined the Advisory Board of Holmby Hills Park, where he walks daily. He became vice president of the group in 2006. "City parks fascinate me. These peaceful oases are essential in the urban maelstrom. As for walking, a Chinese proverb states that 'all problems can be solved by walking'," he recounts. "I solve many of my dilemmas while walking around the park. It allows my mind to wander without having to focus on anything else."

Vitally interested in U.S.-European relations and fluent in French thanks to his mother "who still only speaks to me in French", he comments, Nick regularly travels to Europe, especially Paris. He enjoys walking, scuba diving, history, reading, and movies. Like his protagonist Patrick Carlton, he is an avid admirer of vintage Cadillacs, a fan of Frank Sinatra (who happened to be his neighbor when he was a young child) and a devoted cigar aficionado, spending many hours at the Grand Havana Room (where Carlton's friend Max MacLean is a member).

Nick was admitted to the Mystery Writers of America in 2003 and to the Authors Guild in 2005.

Nick lives in LA with his wife Molly, a fourth grade school teacher, and their daughters Ava and Juliette. An avid traveler and adventurer at heart, he has had the privilege of visiting over 30 countries, including scuba diving with sharks in the South Pacific, pirogueing on the tributaries of the Amazon River in Brazil, camping among the eternal snows of the French Alps, riding a camel along the Nile in Egypt, climbing the Mayan pyramids in the Yucatan jungle of Mexico, and sailing an outboard among the glaciers of Greenland.

Nick is thankful to Divine Providence, his wife Molly, his family, friends, students, agent and editors for their inestimable support and guidance. He is especially thankful to his readers.

He would love to hear from you, so don't be shy--send him an email.