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Fast Facts
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Scott's novels are based on his real experiences as a lawyer in Chicago. He continues to practice law even though his books are such large successes, and works on many cases pro bono.
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Scott takes the issue of capital punishment very seriously, and in 2000 he was appointed to a board with Illinois Governor George Ryan to review the state's capital punishment policy.
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Scott actually taught creative writing at Stanford University before entering Harvard Law School. His love of writing reaches back even before his law career.
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Scott enjoys writing on a computer because of the ability to shift around large blocks of text. When he was younger, he didn't understand why the great author Nabokov would write his books on note cards, but now Scott writes in the same way, only electronically.
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Bio
Scott Turow, is an attorney and an author. His first book, One L, about his experience as a first-year student at Harvard Law School, was published in 1977. Ten years later, he achieved a life-long ambition, with the publication of his first novel, Presumed Innocent, followed by The Burden of Proof and Pleading Guilty. His fourth novel, The Laws of Our Fathers, was published in 1996 and Personal Injuries followed in October, 1999. His latest is Reversible Errors. Mr. Turow’s books have been translated into more than 20 languages and, in total, have sold approximately twenty-five million copies worldwide. They have won a number of literary awards.
Turow continues to work as an attorney. He is a partner in the Chicago office of Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal, a national law firm with over 400 lawyers.. Turow’s practice centers on white-collar criminal litigation. He devotes a substantial part of his practice now to pro bono work, including representations in cases involving the death penalty. In one of these matters, Alejandro Hernandez, co-defendant of Rolando Cruz, was exonerated after 11 years in prison.
Scott Turow was born on April 12, 1949 in Chicago, Illinois. He graduated with high honors from Amherst College in 1970. That year, he received an Edith Mirrielees Fellowship to the Stanford University Creative Writing Center, which he attended from 1970-72. From 1972 to 1975, Mr. Turow taught Creative Writing at Stanford, as E.H. Jones Lecturer. In 1975, he entered Harvard Law School, graduating with honors in 1978. From 1978 to 1986, he was an Assistant United States Attorney in Chicago. He was one of the prosecutors in the trial of Illinois Attorney General William J. Scott, who was convicted of tax fraud. Mr. Turow was also lead government counsel in a number of the trials connected to Operation Greylord, a federal investigation of corruption in the Illinois judiciary. Mr. Turow has been active in a number of charitable causes, including Literacy Chicago. In 1997-98, he served as president of the Authors Guild, which is the national membership organization for professional writers, and continues to serve on its governing board.
Mr. Turow has been married to Annette Turow, a painter, since 1971. They have three children. The family lives outside Chicago.
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