Marianne "Mimi" Wesson has been a law professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder since 1976, where she teaches evidence, trial practice, criminal law and a course called Law and Literature.

A former federal prosecutor, university administrator and acting dean, Wesson is also a bestselling novelist. Her three novels about Boulder lawyer Cinda Hayes, Render Up the Body, A Suggestion of Death and Chilling Effect, have been national bestsellers and won prizes in this country and overseas. Chilling Effect addresses the conflict between freedom of speech and the regulation of pornography in the context of a courtroom thriller. It was praised by both legal scholars and general readers.

Wesson has been a designated a President's Teaching Scholar, the University of Colorado's highest form of recognition for excellence in teaching. Her other awards include the Mary Lathrop Award, bestowed by the Colorado Women's Bar Association, and Elizabeth Gee Memorial Lectureship at the University of Colorado.

Recently she chaired the investigation of research misconduct allegations against Professor Ward Churchill for the university. She also is a regular legal correspondent for National Public Radio. Wesson graduated from Vassar College and the University of Texas Law School.

She lives with her husband on a llama ranch in southern Larimer County, and rides her Kawasaki 800 Drifter motorcycle to work whenever she can. Wesson is now working on a narrative history of a famous 19th century lawsuit, the Hillmon case.