Scott Frederick Turow (born April 12, 1949) is an American

author An author is the writer of a book, article, play, mostly written work. A broader definition of the word "author" states: "''An author is "the person who originated or gave existence to anything" and whose authorship determines responsibility f ...

and

lawyer A lawyer is a person who practices law. The role of a lawyer varies greatly across different legal jurisdictions. A lawyer can be classified as an advocate, attorney, barrister, canon lawyer, civil law notary, counsel, counselor, solici ...

. Turow has written 13 fiction and three nonfiction books, which have been translated into more than 40 languages and sold more than 30 million copies.Scott Turow Bio
/ref> Turow’s novels are set primarily among the legal community in the fictional Kindle County. Films have been based on several of his books.

Life and career

Turow was born in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

, to a family of

Russian Jew The history of the Jews in Russia and areas historically connected with it goes back at least 1,500 years. Jews in Russia have historically constituted a large religious and ethnic diaspora; the Russian Empire at one time hosted the largest pop ...

ish descent. He attended

New Trier High School New Trier High School (, also known as New Trier Township High School or NTHS) is a public high school, public four-year high school, with its main campus for sophomores through seniors located in Winnetka, Illinois, United States, and a campus in ...

and graduated from Amherst College in 1970, as a brother of the Alpha Delta Phi Literary Society. He received an Edith Mirrielees Fellowship to Stanford University’s Creative Writing Center, which he attended from 1970 to 1972. Turow later became a

Jones Lecturer The Jones Lectureship at Stanford University is a two-year teaching fellowship available to previous Stegner Fellows. The Lectureship is available in fiction and poetry and is intended to provide writers with the time and support needed to complete ...

at Stanford, serving until 1975, when he entered

Harvard Law School Harvard Law School (Harvard Law or HLS) is the law school of Harvard University, a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest continuously operating law school in the United States. Each class ...

. In 1977, Turow wrote '' One L'', a book about his first year at law school. After earning his

Juris Doctor The Juris Doctor (J.D. or JD), also known as Doctor of Jurisprudence (J.D., JD, D.Jur., or DJur), is a graduate-entry professional degree in law and one of several Doctor of Law degrees. The J.D. is the standard degree obtained to practice l ...

(J.D.) degree ''

cum laude Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some So ...

'' in 1978, Turow became an Assistant U.S. Attorney in Chicago, serving in that position until 1986. There, he prosecuted several high-profile

corruption Corruption is a form of dishonesty or a criminal offense which is undertaken by a person or an organization which is entrusted in a position of authority, in order to acquire illicit benefits or abuse power for one's personal gain. Corruption m ...

cases, including the

tax fraud Tax evasion is an illegal attempt to defeat the imposition of taxes by individuals, corporations, trusts, and others. Tax evasion often entails the deliberate misrepresentation of the taxpayer's affairs to the tax authorities to reduce the tax ...

case of state Attorney General, William Scott. Turow was also lead counsel in

Operation Greylord Operation Greylord was an investigation conducted jointly by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the IRS Criminal Investigation Division, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the Chicago Police Department Internal Affairs Division and the Illi ...

, the federal prosecution of judicial corruption cases in Illinois. After leaving the U.S. Attorney's Office, Turow became a novelist and wrote the legal thrillers '' Presumed Innocent'' (1987), '' The Burden of Proof'' (1990), '' Pleading Guilty'' (1993), and '' Personal Injuries'', which ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, t ...

'' magazine named as the Best Fiction Novel of 1999. All four books became bestsellers, and Turow won multiple literary awards, most notably the Silver Dagger Award of the British

Crime Writers' Association The Crime Writers' Association (CWA) is a specialist authors’ organisation in the United Kingdom, most notable for its Dagger awards for the best crime writing of the year, and the Diamond Dagger awarded to an author for lifetime achievement. ...

. In 1990, Turow was featured on the June 11 cover of ''Time'', which described him as "Bard of the Litigious Age". In 1995, Canadian author Derek Lundy published a biography of Turow, entitled ''Scott Turow: Meeting the Enemy'' (ECW Press, 1995). In the 1990s, a British publisher bracketed Turow’s work with that of

Margaret Atwood Margaret Eleanor Atwood (born November 18, 1939) is a Canadian poet, novelist, literary critic, essayist, teacher, environmental activist, and inventor. Since 1961, she has published 18 books of poetry, 18 novels, 11 books of non-fiction, ...

and

John Irving John Winslow Irving (born John Wallace Blunt Jr.; March 2, 1942) is an American-Canadian novelist, short story writer, and screenwriter. Irving achieved critical and popular acclaim after the international success of '' The World According t ...

, republished in the series ''Bloomsbury Modern Library.'' Turow was elected the President of the

Authors Guild The Authors Guild is America's oldest and largest professional organization for writers and provides advocacy on issues of free expression and copyright protection. Since its founding in 1912 as the Authors League of America, it has counted among ...

in 2010, which he was previously President of from 1997 to 1998. As the President of the Authors Guild, he has been criticized for his copyright maximalist and anti-

ebook An ebook (short for electronic book), also known as an e-book or eBook, is a book publication made available in digital form, consisting of text, images, or both, readable on the flat-panel display of computers or other electronic devices. Al ...

stance. Turow has often responded that he is not against E-books, however, and he has shared that, in fact, he does the majority of his own reading electronically. According to Turow, he is interested in protecting writing as a livelihood. From 1997 to 1998, Turow was a member of the U.S. Senate Nominations Commission for the Northern District of Illinois, which recommends federal judicial appointments. In 2011, Turow met with

professor,

Lawrence Lessig Lester Lawrence Lessig III (born June 3, 1961) is an American academic, attorney, and political activist. He is the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and the former director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard ...

, to discuss political reform, including a possible

Second Constitutional Convention of the United States The calling of a Second Constitutional Convention of the United States is a proposal made by some academics and activists from across the political spectrum for the purpose of making substantive reforms to the federal government of the United Stat ...

. According to one source, Turow saw risks with having such a convention, but he believed that it may be the "only alternative,” given his stance that campaign money can undermine the one man, one vote principle of democracy. Turow is a retired partner of the international law firm Dentons having been a partner of one of its constituents, the Chicago law firm of Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal. Much of Turow’s caseload work is pro bono, including a 1995 case, in which he won the release of Alejandro Hernandez, a man that spent 11 years on death row for a murder he did not commit. He was also appointed to the commission considering the reform of the Illinois death penalty by former

Governor A governor is an administrative leader and head of a polity or political region, ranking under the head of state and in some cases, such as governors-general, as the head of state's official representative. Depending on the type of political ...

George Ryan George Homer Ryan (born February 24, 1934) is an American former politician and member of the Republican Party who served as the 39th governor of Illinois from 1999 to 2003. Elected in 1998, Ryan received national attention for his 1999 morat ...

. Additionally, Turow was the first Chair of the Illinois Executive Ethics Commission, and he served as one of the 14 members on the Commission, which was appointed in March of 2000, by Illinois Governor George Ryan to consider reform of the

capital punishment Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that ...

system. Turow also served as a member of the Illinois State Police Merit Board 2000–2002.

Bibliography

Novels

Turow’s fiction is set primarily among the legal community in the fictional Kindle County. According to Turow, he planned to set his first novel, ‘’Presumed Innocent’’ in

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the capital city, state capital and List of municipalities in Massachusetts, most populous city of the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financ ...

, where he attended law school. But by the time he finished the work, the setting had taken on characteristics of Chicago, Turow’s hometown to which he had returned. # '' Presumed Innocent'', 1987 ( Film) # '' The Burden of Proof'', 1990 ( Film) # '' Pleading Guilty'', 1993 # '' The Laws of Our Fathers'', 1996 # '' Personal Injuries'', 1999 # ''

Reversible Errors ''Reversible Errors'', published in 2002 (paperback edition by Picador, 2003) is Scott Turow's sixth novel, and like the others, set in fictional Kindle County. The title is a legal term. The novel was a ''New York Times'' best seller, won the ...

'', 2002 ( Film) # '' Ordinary Heroes'', 2005 # '' Limitations'', 2006 # '' Innocent'', 2010 ( TV program on TNT) # '' Identical'', 2013 # ''

Testimony In law and in religion, testimony is a solemn attestation as to the truth of a matter. Etymology The words "testimony" and "testify" both derive from the Latin word ''testis'', referring to the notion of a disinterested third-party witness. ...

'', May 2017 # '' The Last Trial'', 2020 # ''

Suspect In law enforcement jargon, a suspect is a known person accused or suspected of committing a crime. Police and reporters in the United States often use the word suspect as a jargon when referring to the perpetrator of the offense (perp in dated ...

'', Sept 2022

As editor

* ''Guilty As Charged'', 1996 (as editor) * '' The Best American Mystery Stories'', 2006 (as editor)

Non-fiction

* '' One L'', 1977 * '' Ultimate Punishment: A Lawyer's Reflections on Dealing with the Death Penalty'', 2003 * ''Hard Listening'', co-authored in July 2013, an interactive ebook about his participation in a writer/musician band, the

Rock Bottom Remainders The Rock Bottom Remainders, also known as the Remainders, was an American rock charity supergroup, consisting of published writers, most of them both amateur musicians and popular English-language book, magazine, and newspaper authors. The ban ...

. Published by Coliloquy, LLC.

Reception

His non-fiction work ''Ultimate Punishment'' also received the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights 2003 Book award given annually to a novelist who "most faithfully and forcefully reflects Robert Kennedy's purposes – his concern for the poor and the powerless, his struggle for honest and even-handed justice, his conviction that a decent society must assure all young people a fair chance, and his faith that a free democracy can act to remedy disparities of power and opportunity."

Films

* '' Presumed Innocent'', 1990 * '' The Burden of Proof'', 1992 * ''

'', 2004 * '' Innocent'', 2011

Awards

Scott Turow was inducted as a Laureate of The Lincoln Academy of Illinois and awarded the Order of Lincoln (the State’s highest honor) by the Governor of Illinois in 2000 in the area of Communications.

References

External links

Official website
* *
A reading from ''The Laws of Our Fathers'' by Scott TurowInterview
on '' Ordinary Heroes'' at the

Pritzker Military Museum & Library The Pritzker Military Museum & Library (formerly Pritzker Military Library) is a non-profit museum and a research library for the study of military history on Michigan Avenue (Chicago), Michigan Avenue in Chicago, Illinois. The institution was fo ...

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Turow, Scott 1949 births Living people Amherst College alumni Stanford University alumni Stanford University faculty Harvard Law School alumni New Trier High School alumni American thriller writers Rock Bottom Remainders members 20th-century American novelists 21st-century American novelists American people of Russian-Jewish descent Writers from Chicago Illinois lawyers American male novelists 20th-century American male writers 21st-century American male writers Novelists from Illinois