Success Story: Jay Nussbaum: From Real Estate Law to Novelist and Black Belt

On the surface, Jay Nussbaum was headed to a career in law. After graduating Boston University School of Law, he practiced as a real estate lawyer in New York City, eventually becoming general counsel of a mortgage bank. But on a deeper level, Nussbaum had other passions he could not shake. During law school, he took up karate, and continued after graduation until he was awarded a black belt in 1991. He opened his own school in 1992, and later traveled the world studying and teaching martial arts.

Nussbaum also loves writing. Beginning in 1987, he worked on several manuscripts until, in 2002, he published Blue Road to Atlantis - a novel about making courageous choices in life as told from the perspective of of "Old Fish" - a huge marlin who is on a journey of self-discovery.

Nussbaum's latest effort is a A Monk Jumped Over a Wall, another novel about self-discovery featuring J.J. Spencer, a young lawyer at a big firm who learns valuable lessons after his life is turned upside down under freak circumstances.