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"When I write, I think of an impressionist painting.
I like to give the reader room to imagine."
Arlaine Rockey
Arlaine Rockey moved with her family to Charlotte, North Carolina, when she was five. While in high school at Charlotte Country Day School, she discovered loves that would accompany and encourage her for life — political philosophy, literature and writing. Of particular influence was an English teacher who constructively criticized Arlaine’s writing, evoking both fury and a passion for the crisp, intriguing style that characterizes her writing.
While majoring in English at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Rockey tailored her writing skills through contributions to The Daily Tarheel. Though encouraged by her father, a podiatrist, to attend law school, Rockey spent her first two years after college in several management and clerking positions, including a stint at London’s Hard Rock Cafe. It was volunteering at battered womens’ shelters, however, that brought focus to Rockey’s desire to have a meaningful profession — she chose to pursue a legal career as an opportunity to create social change and champion those often ignored or under-represented by the legal system.
Rockey entered the University of Miami School of Law with gusto. She participated in the Children & the Law Summer Honors program and became a guardian ad litem for children in foster care. She also continued to hone her journalistic skills at the law school newspaper and as a member of the Entertainment and Sports Law Review. Other activities included two terms as President of the Women’s Law Students Association; membership in the distinguished Society of Bar & Gavel; and an internship with the Miami State Attorney’s Office in the Domestic Crimes, DUI, Traffic divisions.
After graduating in 1989, Rockey represented teenagers in foster care at Legal Services of Greater Miami before returning to Charlotte to start a private practice handling family, domestic violence, juvenile, and criminal defense cases. Upon discovering that in North Carolina husbands could not be prosecuted for raping their wives if the couple were still living together at the time of the violation, Arlaine founded the Association for the Reform of North Carolina Marital Rape Laws, a bi-partisan grassroots organization that became the statewide coalition successful in seeing the NC marital rape exemption completely eliminated in 1993 after an 18-month battle.
That same year, Rockey joined Legal Services of Southern Piedmont and spent six years representing mostly battered women in custody and domestic violence protective order cases. While there, she helped draft and see passed a law allowing terminally ill parents to appoint standby guardians for their children. She also helped create and teach free self-help custody clinics and domestic violence legal clinics instructing abuse sufferers how to prepare and present their cases without attorneys. Rockey also co-wrote two videos now used throughout the state in training victims and pro bono attorneys for domestic violence protective order cases.
Rockey’s first novel, Ocean Court, was published in 1999. It is a legal mystery about an idealistic young lawyer and her colleagues confronting murder, deception and bias against the culturally intricate backdrop of Miami and Key West. She is currently working on her second novel, set in Charlotte and involving a battered wife and the female lawyer who represents her when she is accused of murdering her husband, a prominent local attorney.
With seventeen years of legal experience, Rockey's law practice now focuses on complex custody cases involving domestic violence and/or child physical or sexual abuse and criminal defense cases. She practices across North Carolina and the country. A single mother, Rockey lives near Asheville with her two children.
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