Soon-to-be-Published Work: The Right to Counsel: A Lawyer’s Struggle to Defend a Serial Killer ( To be published by Sphinx Legal in the Spring/Summer of 2008; editor: Erin R. Shanahan) (nonfiction / memoir / legal ethics)
Summary: A compelling memoir from his law-school days in 1984, when he assisted his professor, Ron Smith, Esq., in appealing the death sentence of convicted rapist-murderer Michael Dee Mattson. Mattson had committed the most heinous crimes imaginable, brutalizing and assassinating extremely young girls in California and Nevada, stirring within Jim passions that reverted to a crime committed against his own family. But, as an attorney, wasn't he compelled to argue the best possible defense for the client? When Ron found a logical basis for overturning the verdict, one that could lead to life without parole, Jim wrestled with the notion of keeping quiet. For the truth was, he had found an even greater breach of law which, if brought before the California Supreme Court, might get their client released back into society. What to do…? These gripping moral and ethical issues are delved into on one level, as Jim tells the story of Mattson's murders and the police interrogations on a second level. As the stories mesh, we learn that the protagonist's dilemma can truly be resolved only one way.
Work-In-Progress: FORTY ACRES AND A MULE: Myth or Reality? (nonfiction / history)
Summary: Presents an in-depth, authoritative analysis of this very controversial issue and delves into whether or not the U.S. Government ever made such a controversial promise, one that African-Americans still believe one hundred and forty years later.

With the end of the civil war came Reconstruction. Millions of emancipated slaves, although happy with their newfound freedom, were displaced from their homes. Millions of acreage was available from the abandoned lands of the Confederate soldiers who had left to fight in the war. Turmoil ensued when the returning Confederate soldiers found that their lands had been settled on. The former slaves argued that the United State Government had promised them “forty acres and a mule,” and the land they had settled on was a direct result of that promise. The fight over the abandoned lands reached the highest level.
Bio: Jim is the founder and CEO of Potts & Associates in Pasadena, which specializes in assisting, training, and representing businesses to assure their compliance with state and federal employment laws.

He is a native New Yorker, who earned a BA degree in history from California State University at Los Angeles and a Juris Doctor from the University of West Los Angeles Law School. During his last year in law school, Jim began working for National Employers Council, a firm that helps companies reduce their unemployment taxes. Jim rose to corporate Senior Vice President after he successfully introduced new programs to assist their clients in all aspects of human resources and representation in the employment law arena.

In 1992, Jim left after thirteen years and formed JWP Consulting Group and within a few years, joined forces with Judy Armstrong, an eighteen-year veteran of the industry, which specialized in non-profit employers. This decision gave Jim an added dimension to his client base. Potts, Armstrong & Associates was in the right place at the right time and began to grow rapidly. In 1999, after viewing the increasingly positive market opportunities and trends, Jim again branched out and formed Potts & Associates. With this move, Jim, along with his long-time associate, Maria Raygoza, took his new organization to an even higher level by adding employers that operate their businesses on a national level. Jim now has fifteen employees to assist him with over three-hundred clients.

In addition to his daily responsibilities, Jim is also a reserve deputy sheriff with the rank of Captain, a licensed real estate broker, a keynote speaker in high demand by employer advocacy groups, a certified mediator and expert witness specializing in employment law and workplace rights, and a master teacher for the University of Phoenix, an honor only afforded to the top twenty percent of the institution’s instructors.

Jim and his wife Brenda have three children, Zalore, 33, Jamal, 29, and Jamayne, 25.
Website: www.jameswilliampotts.com