Environmental lawyer by day, novelist by night. It sounds almost like a character from one of Covington senior counsel Allan Topol's thrillers, which also incorporate international relations issues to which he wants to call attention. (The Russian Endgame features a president modeled on Putin.) His tenth novel, The Argentine Triangle came out a few days ago; it was inspired by a vacation to Argentina with his wife, where he became fascinated by the country and its dramatic drop in wealth over the last hundred years.  (He's also a wine collector, so it was only fitting to have a book signing in a local liquor store.)

At Covington, Allan's busy with a large Superfund case in California. And in a first-time intersection of his writing and law careers, he recently started writing on international and public policy issues for the firm's public policy group, headed by former Pepsi SVP Dan Bryant. He's using his legal background for the next novel of his you'll see on sale (March 2015), one that might resonate with the DC community: The Washington Lawyer. Allan tells us it deals with the issue of "unchecked advisors" to the president, usually in the form of top DC lawyers.