There is a terrific profile of our pal Rikki Klieman, Court TV anchor and wife of LA's new police commisoner William Bratton, in today's LA Times called Counsel to the cop: She fits the profile.

"A pit-bull litigator in Boston before her television career, Klieman first started making headlines as a prosecutor, then as a criminal defense lawyer with the large silk-stocking law firm Choate, Hall & Stewart, and ultimately in her own firm, Klieman, Lyons, Schindler & Gross. No longer a partner, she remains "of counsel," practicing solely in an advisory capacity."

"In 1983, Time magazine named her one of the nation's five best women attorneys, all of them talented trial lawyers: "As a group, they are less like the stereotype of their sex than the stereotype of their job: they are fiercely intelligent, tough-minded, intensely competitive, self-assured individualists who relish the fray."

"Warm, friendly, down-to-earth, Klieman nevertheless brings a formidable intellect and terrific recall to her show, which dissects both sides of big trials, the prosecution and the defense. She's also ended up in film. "In my work at Court TV, my greatest fun, besides what I do, has been acting," she says. "I played myself in 'Cable Guy' with Jim Carrey. I played a reporter in 'A Civil Action' with John Travolta. I most recently played a lawyer in '15 Minutes' with Robert De Niro."

"While a trial lawyer, she says, she worked "10 1/2 days out of every week," at a high cost. "Many women in my generation, who were in college during the '60s, of course, during the feminist revolution, were driven to put success above our personal lives. There are many women who have sacrificed solid, loving relationships, marriages, children, and their physical and psychological health," Klieman says. "My life was geared as a successful lawyer."

"Success required sacrifices: two failed marriages. No children. Health problems...She's now writing a cautionary autobiography, "The Price of the Prize," with Peter Knobler, who also worked on Bratton's book "Turnaround: "How America's Top Cop Reversed the Crime Epidemic." It's due out in the spring."

We predict a best-seller.