Scott Turow was born on April 12, 1949 in Chicago, Illinois.  He said that he had wanted to write since he was 17 years old.  He attended Amherst College where he graduated in 1970.  He won a scholarship to attend Stanford College Writing Center where he graduated and began teaching creative writing from 1972 to 1975.  From 1975 to 1978 he attended Harvard Law School.
He says that he wanted to write and practice law when he realized he wasn’t going to support himself as a writer.  During his first year at Harvard, he was commissioned to write a book on his experiences as a first year law student.  One L is the published outcome.
Scott married Annette, a painter, in 1971.  They have three children.  Scott and Annette divorced in 2008.
From 1978 to 1986, he was an Assistant US Attorney in Chicago where he prosecuted several high profile cases. 
Besides his books, Scott has published many articles including book reviews and a treatise on why he doesn’t believe in the death penalty.  In 2003 his book, Ultimate Punishment: A Lawyer’s Reflections on Dealing with the Death Penalty, was published.
He is a partner in a large national law firm, Sonnenshein, Nath and Rosenthal.  He has worked pro bono cases especially for those wrongfully convicted, such as Alejandro Hernandez.  Mr. Hernandez was accused and convicted of a murder and spent 11 years on death row before Scott won his release in 1996.  He was also appointed, by then Governor George Ryan, to the commission of capital punishment reform.
He is a trustee at Amherst College and he was the president of the Author’s Guild for a year and still serves on the board.
He wrote the book “One L” while in his first year of law school. 
So far three of Scott Turow’s books have been made into Movies: Presumed Innocent (1990), The Burden of Proof (1992) and Reversible Errors (2004)

Scott Turow Books:

Presumed Innocent (1987)
The Burden of Proof (1990)
Pleading Guilty (1993)
The Laws of Our Fathers (1996)
Personal Injuries (1999)
Reversible Errors (2002)
Ordinary Heroes (2005)
Limitaions (2006)

Nonfiction:
One L (1977)
Ultimate Punishment: A lawyer’s Reflection on Dealing with the Death Penalty (2003)