Scott Turow

Scott Turow's new novel is Identical.

From his Q & A with Noah Charney for The Daily Beast:

You studied law and are a practicing lawyer. Was there a particular historical legal case that inspired you to become a lawyer, or that captured your imagination during law school?

Truth told, no. Like most Americans of my age, I was very impressed by the dynamic capacities of the law, demonstrated by the civil rights movement and then Watergate, animated by Sam Ervin’s mantra that no person is above the law. But the case that had the most impact on me was an imaginary one, central to a novel I failed to publish while I was a writing fellow at Stanford. The legal details I’d included in the book fascinated me, if not my would-be publishers, and clued me to how deeply interested I was in the law, which was something of a shock.

What prompted you to write your first book, at the start of your legal career?

One L was written largely by accident. I was embarrassed to tell the agent who had worked so hard to sell my unpublished novel that I was going to law school, so as a kind of sop I mentioned to her that there really were no nonfiction books about what it was like to be a law student. I wasn’t actually proposing to write that book myself, but when she presented a contract to do it, I couldn’t say no. My rejection slips, laid end to end, reached most of the way to the moon.

I’ve asked this question of Judge Richard Posner, and I thought I’d ask you the same. Besides the U.S., which other nation’s legal system do you particularly admire, and what is different and admirable about it?

Unlike Judge Posner, I don’t consider myself well-versed in the legal systems of other nations, although I’ve been lucky enough to travel quite a bit. That said...[read on]

See: Scott Turow's five best legal novels.

Read about a book that changed Turow's life.

--Marshal Zeringue