Steven Brill (born August 22, 1950) is an American lawyer, journalist, and entrepreneur who founded monthly magazine The American Lawyer and cable channel Court TV. He is the author of the best-selling book, Tailspin: The People and Forces Behind America's Fifty-Year Fall – and Those Fighting to Reverse It. Early life and education Brill was born to a Jewish family in Far Rockaway, Queens, New York.Steinbach, Alice, "Steven Brill plans to bring the O.J. Simpson trial to the small screen COURTING TV", The Baltimore Sun, September 25, 1994 He is a graduate of Deerfield Academy, Yale College (B.A., 1972), and Yale Law School (J.D., 1975). Projects In October 1978, Brill published his first book, The Teamsters. In 1979, Brill launched The American Lawyer, a monthly magazine covering the business of law firms and lawyers in the United States and around the world. Jill Abramson and Jim Cramer were among its early contributors. The magazine is noted for its surveys, including the "Am Law 100", an annual ranking of the top 100 U.S. law firms, which it launched in 1986. The magazine covered the meteoric rise and precipitous collapse of the law firm of Finley, Kumble, Wagner, Underberg, Manley, Myerson & Casey, in its September 1987 cover story, "Bye, Bye, Finley, Kumble", written by Brill. In 1989, Brill founded Court TV (now TruTV), launching the network on July 1, 1991. Among its original anchors were Fred Graham, who was still at the network twenty years later; Cynthia McFadden; and Terry Moran, who later joined ABC News. The network was born out of two competing projects to launch cable channels with live courtroom proceedings, the American Trial Network from TimeWarner and American Lawyer Media and In Court from Cablevision and NBC. Both projects were combined and presented at the National Cable Television Association, in June 1990. Liberty Media joined the venture, in 1991. Court TV featured continuous live trial coverage, with analysis by anchors. The network's profile was raised during the Menendez brothers' first trial and, later, the O. J. Simpson murder trial. In 1997, Brill resigned from the network. In June 1998, Brill launched Brill's Content, a media watchdog publication that ceased publication in fall 2001. The magazine caused a stir in its very first issue with Brill's article titled "Pressgate" charging that independent counsel Ken Starr and his office had been the source of much of the information for reporters