Scott Turow

Scott Turow (born April 12, 1949, in Chicago) is an American writer and lawyer best known for his legal fiction. Born into a family of Belarusian Jewish descent, he grew up in West Rogers Park before his family moved to the suburb of Winnetka when he was thirteen. His father, a physician, hoped he would follow him into medicine, while his mother, Rita, was the figure who most encouraged his ambitions. He studied at Amherst College, graduating in 1970, and then spent two years at Stanford's creative writing program.

Turow practiced law for about a decade before he turned to writing full time. His first book, One L (1977), recounted his first year at law school and drew on his own experience. His breakthrough came with Presumed Innocent (1987), a courtroom thriller about a prosecutor accused of murder. Most of his novels unfold in the fictional Kindle County, and he is known for careful attention to how the legal system actually works, with the moral uncertainty of his characters usually at the center. Recurring themes include imperfect justice, guilt and the limits of the courts, as seen in The Burden of Proof (1990), Pleading Guilty (1993) and Reversible Errors (2002).

In 1990 he appeared on the cover of Time, which called him the bard of the litigious age. He was elected president of the Authors Guild in 2010, a role in which he argued for protecting writers' livelihoods, a position that drew criticism for its stance on copyright and e-books. His lasting contribution is to the modern legal thriller: his books have been translated into dozens of languages, sold in the tens of millions, and several have been adapted for film and television.