Defending the Devil: My Story as Ted Bundy's Last Lawyer is a 1994 nonfiction book written by Polly Nelson

Polly Nelson

Polly Jean Nelson is an American attorney and author. She is best known as a member of serial killer Ted Bundy's last defense team from 1986 until his execution in 1989.-Education and early career:...

 and published by William Morrow & Company. Nelson served as serial killer

Serial killer

A serial killer, as typically defined, is an individual who has murdered three or more people over a period of more than a month, with down time between the murders, and whose motivation for killing is usually based on psychological gratification...

 Ted Bundy

Ted Bundy

Theodore Robert "Ted" Bundy was an American serial killer, rapist, kidnapper, and necrophile who assaulted and murdered numerous young women during the 1970s, and possibly earlier...

's last lawyer before his execution in 1989. The book describes her attempts to spare Bundy from the death penalty, and gives her impressions of him as a person.

Nelson sued novelist John Grisham

John Grisham

John Ray Grisham, Jr. is an American lawyer and author, best known for his popular legal thrillers.John Grisham graduated from Mississippi State University before attending the University of Mississippi School of Law in 1981 and practiced criminal law for about a decade...

 in 1995, alleging his book The Chamber

The Chamber (novel)

The Chamber is a legal thriller written by American author John Grisham.-Plot:The Chamber, set largely in and around the Mississippi State Penitentiary, is the story of Sam Cayhall, a former Klansman who has been convicted of murder and sentenced to death by gas chamber 20 years after his bombing...

had striking similarities to her work. After Grisham prevailed in a lower court ruling in 1996, the case was dismissed on appeal in 1997.