The accounts and opinions set forth in this book are solely mine, but I am deeply indebted to the people who generously took time to read sections of my manuscript and then provided invaluable counsel and editing: Drane Brayton, Susanne Craig, David Rohde, Kristen Mulvihill, David Sanger, Jodi Kantor, Megan Twohey, Sergio Florez, Mike Schmidt, Michael Slackman, and Christina Koningisor. Suzanne Daley reimagined the opening chapters and inspired everything that came after. Mark McCraw was a ruthless, and maddeningly right, fact-checker. Neil Swidey, Susan Crawford, Karen Greenberg, and Chris Chivers, all friends who have written their own books, offered advice and encouragement at critical moments. Michael Pollak was a deft copy editor for me. At The Times, General Counsel Diane Brayton supported this project from the start and was instrumental in setting up a leave so I could finish writing. Her predecessor, Ken Richieri, helped shape my thinking about the book when I first began talking about it in the fall of 2016. The senior leadership at The Times, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., A. G. Sulzberger, Mark Thompson, and Dean Baquet, enthusiastically embraced the idea that a Times lawyer should, and maybe even could, write a book. It was the literary agent Kim Witherspoon who first raised the idea of the book when we met in October 2016, and she has been a guiding hand ever since. I am also indebted to the team at St. Martin’s—Adam Bellow, Kevin Reilly, Alan Bradshaw, and their coworkers, who turned a manuscript into a book and made it better at every step.