Congratulations to Thomas Harper on winning the Pennsylvania Bar Association’s Legal Fiction contest for his story “The Ghost of Kyiv”. Tom is a previous winner of the Legal Fiction contest for “Victor’s Justice”. The guidelines for all submissions are that they have to be in some way connected to the law or lawyers and that it be 5,000 words or less.
“When asked which came first, the setting, the characters or the storyline, fiction contest winner Thomas L. Harper replied, “Oddly enough, the nickname ‘Ghost’ came first. In the first days of the Ukraine war, there was a viral story (likely just a myth) of a Ukrainian pilot who downed six enemy aircraft in the first day of the conflict (for reference, five air-to-air kills qualifies a pilot as an ‘Ace’). At the time, there was still a very real threat that all of Ukraine could collapse, so it was a sort of David and Goliath type of story that worked to inspire hope. The story set the internet ablaze, and the nameless pilot was dubbed ‘The Ghost of Kyiv.’ Although it was probably more fiction, it really resonated with me and was a great example of how powerful stories can be in inspiring hope in the darkest of times.” Tom remarked.
Tom serves as Of Counsel to Zator Law and has served on the Veterans & Military Council Business Initiative of the Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce and the Workers’ Compensation Committee of the Lehigh County Bar Association.
