Phillip Margolin Biography, Books, and Similar Authors

Phillip Margolin Biography

Phillip Margolin grew up in New York City and Levittown, New York. In 1965, he graduated from The American University in Washington, D.C. with a Bachelor's Degree in Government. From 1965 to 1967, he was a Peace Corps volunteer in Liberia, West Africa. In 1970, he graduated from New York University School of Law. During his last two years in law school he went at night and worked his way through by teaching junior high school in the South Bronx in New York City. His first job after law school was a clerkship with Herbert M. Schwab, the Chief Judge of the Oregon Court of Appeals. From 1972 until 1996, Margolin was in private practice in Portland, Oregon, specializing in criminal defense at the trial and appellate levels. As an appellate attorney he has appeared before the United States Supreme Court, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, the Oregon Supreme Court and the Oregon Court of Appeals. As a trial attorney, he handled all sorts of criminal cases in state and federal court and he has represented approximately 30 people charged with homicide, including several who have faced the death penalty. Margolin was the first Oregon attorney to use the Battered Women's Syndrome to defend a battered woman accused of murdering her spouse.

Since 1996, Margolin has been writing full-time. Heartstone, his first novel, was nominated for an Edgar for best original paperback mystery of 1978 by the Mystery Writers of America. his second novel, The Last Innocent Man, was made into an HBO movie. Gone, But Not Forgotten  has been sold to more than 25 foreign publishers and debuted as a miniseries in 2004. After Dark, The Burning Man, The Undertaker's Widow, Wild Justice, The Associate, Ties That Bind and Sleeping Beauty were also New York Times bestsellers and selections or main selections of the major book clubs.

In addition to his novels, Margolin has published short stories and non-fiction articles in magazines and law journals. His short story, The Jailhouse Lawyer, was selected for the anthology 1999, The Best American Mystery Stories.

Since 1996, Phillip Margolin has been the President and Chairman of the Board of Chess for Success, a non-profit charity that uses chess to teach study skills to elementary and middle school children in Title I schools.

Phillip Margolin's website

This bio was last updated on 08/03/2016. In a perfect world, we would like to keep all of BookBrowse's biographies up to date, but with many thousands of lives to keep track of it's simply impossible to do. So, if the date of this bio is not recent, you may wish to do an internet search for a more current source, such as the author's website or social media presence. If you are the author or publisher and would like us to update this biography, send the complete text and we will replace the old with the new.