Scott Turow
Attorney & Author of Legal Thrillers
Scott Turow
Attorney & Author of Legal Thrillers
Biography
Scott Turow is a writer and attorney. He is the author of fourteen works of fiction, including Presumed Innocent and most recently, Presumed Guilty, all New York Times bestsellers. Mr. Turow has also published two nonfiction books, including One L, about his experience as a law student.
His books have been translated into more than forty languages and sold more than thirty million copies worldwide. He has frequently contributed essays and op-ed pieces to publications such as the New York Times, Washington Post, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, and The Atlantic. His works have been the basis for film and television projects. Most recently, in the summer of 2024, Apple TV+ released an eight-part limited series based on Presumed Innocent, starring Jake Gyllenhaal, which became Apple’s highest-rated drama series, leading Apple to order a second season. Other film projects based on Mr. Turow’s work are also in development, including Presumed Guilty which has been optioned by Warner Bros for David E. Kelley and J.J. Abrams (Bad Robot).
In 1986, Mr. Turow became a partner in the Chicago office of Dentons LLC, an international law firm, concentrating on white collar criminal defense, while also devoting a substantial part of his time to pro bono matters. He retired from commercial practice in 2020. From 1978 until 1986, Mr. Turow worked as Assistant United Sates Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois prosecuting several high-profile public corruption cases. He has also served on a number of public bodies, including the Illinois Commission on Capital Punishment, which proposed reforms to Illinois’ death penalty system, and he was the first Chair of Illinois’ Executive Ethics Commission, created in 2004 to regulate executive branch employees in Illinois. Mr. Turow is a former President of the Authors Guild, the nation’s largest membership organization of professional writers, an Emeritus Trustee of Amherst College, and a former Trustee of the Poetry Foundation.
Speaker Videos
Celebrating Study
Speech Topics
It’s Only Words: Storytelling in the Courtroom
A serious dissection of the meaning of voice and rhetoric from the prospective of both a lawyer and novelist.
How I Got to be Two Things
Turow provides humorous reflections on having two careers: that of a writer and of a lawyer. He traces his early ambition to be a novelist, his many early failures, and how the great break of his literary career came when he decided to go to law school. The ensuing challenges of maintaining careers as both a writer and lawyer provide the backdrop for this highly entertaining presentation.
Where Are You Perry Mason?
Turow stimulates discussion of the popular image of lawyers, focusing on the dizzying ambivalence Americans feel towards lawyers and tracing the reasons for both their liking and loathing: attorneys' power in American society, their perceived dark sides, and their ideals as reflected in stories, books, movies, and on television.
A Novelist Goes to Hollywood
Turow discusses the high risks and rewards that come when Hollywood buys your book for the big screen. Having had six of his books purchased in Hollywood – resulting in one movie and two television miniseries, Turow recounts the fun: interactions with stars, enlightening creative experiences, and the follies of Hollywood's complex business calculations.
Confessions of a Death Penalty Agnostic
Turow provides a balanced discussion of a very volatile topic: capital punishment. As a prosecutor, Turow supported the death penalty reluctantly. However, his experiences as a defense lawyer and as a member of the Illinois Capital Punishment Commission made him realize that the important question about capital punishment is not whether it is moral, but whether it can work as a legal institution to give Americans what they want – justice.
Government Ethics In Illinois: An Oxymoron?
Is there such a thing as a culture of corruption? How does it sustain itself? How can the same political culture produce both Barack Obama and Rod Blagojevich? What are the prospects for reform? And what reforms seem essential? In this stimulating keynote presentation, Turow examines answers to these seemingly unanswerable questions and more.
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