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Meet the Author: Scott Turow
Scott Turow is the author of seven best-selling novels including Presumed Innocent. He was born in Chicago in 1949. 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 1970-1972. From 1972-1975, 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 1978-1986, he was an Assistant United States Attorney in Chicago. He was a prosecutor 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 into the Illinois judiciary.
Mr. Turow continues to work as an attorney. He has been a partner in the Chicago office of Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal, a national law firm, since 1986, concentrating on white collar criminal defense, while also devoting a substantial amount of time to pro bono matters. In one such case, he represented Alejandro Hernandez in the successful appeal that preceded Hernandez's release after nearly twelve years in prison, including five on death row, for a murder he did not commit.
Mr. Turow has three adult children. He lives outside Chicago and is working on a sequel to Presumed Innocent.
Q&A with Scott Turow
Q: What was it like to have Tillie Olsen as a professor?
A: Tillie was passionate and entirely unique, committed heart and soul to the power of goodness within every person and to the redeeming value of literature. From Tillie I learned nothing more important than to believe in myself as a writer.
Q: Why did you decide to go to law school after teaching creative writing at Stanford?
A: My dream was to be a novelist from the time I was 11 or 12 years old. After becoming a writing fellow at Stanford, I became a lecturer in the English Department, teaching creative writing to undergraduates. Teaching was simply a way to make a living
and I decided to go to law school.
There were a couple of considerations. One, I'd concluded that I was not really cut out for academic life. This is no slam of people who are good at it, but I was just there for the pay check. Second, I was far more interested in law than I expected. My father was a doctor, and as I say, he hated lawyers, long before it was fashionable for doctors. I had little exposure to law until my college roommates went to law school and started practice. By then I found that I was making friends with lawyers in San Francisco. It seemed I was far more interested in law than academic English.
Q: Please tell us about serving on George Ryan's Commission on Capital Punishment and your work with the Innocence Project
A: I have worked in coordination with the Innocence Project on cases and have participated in fundraisers for their benefit, sometimes with my friend, John Grisham, a wonderful supporter of the IP in Mississippi. I think Barry Scheck really deserves the Nobel Peace Prize. The Ryan Commission was a unique experience, 14 very busy, very talented people who took the task to heart. We did not always agree, but there was immense respect around the table for the open attitudes of every one there, and for the importance of the question Gov. Ryan had posed: What reforms if any will make the death penalty fair, just, and accurate.
Q: Are you still working as an attorney? What types of cases do you take on?
A: Since 1990, I've practiced part-time. By now, I'm a quarter-time lawyer. I continue to work as a lawyer mostly because I can do some good in the practical way that lawyers do. I am currently a member of the State Executive Ethics Commission, a quasi-judicial agency governing the behavior of executive branch employees, and I also represent some clients in criminal matters. One pro bono case concerns a young man who was previous sentence to death for a crime he may well not have committed.
Q: Can you share with us any details about your upcoming novel, the sequel to Presumed Innocent?
A: Well, I have said before that my vision of the book begins with a man sitting on a bed in which the body of a dead woman lays. The man is Rusty Sabich, the hero of Presumed Innocent.
Interview Date: August 2008
Profile and questions compiled by Megan M., Main Library
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