Stuart Taylor, Jr. is an author and freelance journalist focusing on legal and policy issues, a National Journal contributing editor, and a nonresident senior fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution. He teaches “Law and the News Media” at Stanford Law School and practices law on occasion. He has covered the Supreme Court and other matters for National Journal, The New York Times, Newsweek, and other publications, winning various journalism awards, and has appeared on all major television and radio networks.

Taylor is coauthoring a book on affirmative action with Richard Sander; previously coauthored a critically acclaimed 2007 book on the Duke lacrosse rape fraud with KC Johnson; and has contributed essays to other books. He can be reached at [email protected]. His website is http://stuarttaylorjr.com.

Taylor graduated from Princeton University in 1970 with an A.B. in History. After working as a reporter for the Baltimore Evening Sun and Sun from 1971-1974, he moved to Harvard Law School, serving as a note editor for the Harvard Law Review, graduating in 1977 with high honors. He also won a Frederick Sheldon Traveling Fellowship, which he used to travel around the world during the academic year 1977-1978 while studying freedom of the press in the United Kingdom and Kenya.

Taylor practiced law with Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering from 1978-1980. He joined the New York Times Washington Bureau in 1980, covering legal affairs from 1980-1985 and the Supreme Court from 1985-1988. Since then he has written commentary and in-depth magazine articles from 1989-1997 for The American Lawyer, Legal Times and their affiliates; a weekly opinion column for National Journal from 1998 until June 2010; and numerous articles since 1998 as a Newsweek contributing editor. He has also written for The Atlantic, Slate, The New Republic, Harper’s, Reader’s Digest, and other magazines while writing occasional commentaries for The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Los Angeles Times.

Taylor's journalism honors include the 2009 Northern California Innocence Project Media Award for his work on the Duke lacrosse rape fraud; a 2002 National Headliner Award for best special magazine column on one subject; a 1988 New York Times nomination for a Pulitzer Prize for Supreme Court coverage; a share of The American Lawyer’s National Magazine Award for a March 1990 special issue on the drug war; becoming a National Magazine Award finalist in 1993 and 1997; the 1991 Golden Quill Award for Excellence in Editorial Writing; and a 1990 Penn State School of Communications citation for Improving Journalism Through Critical Evaluation.

Among those who have highly praised Taylor's Duke lacrosse book are columnists George Will, Michael Kinsley, and Clarence Page; novelist John Grisham; ACLU President Nadine Strossen; former Attorney General William Barr; book reviewers for the Times, the Journal, the Economist, and Newsweek, among others; and (in private conversations) more than one Supreme Court justice.

Taylor and his wife, Sally Lamar Ellis, live in Washington. They have two daughters.

Political, Innovation, Thought Leaders, Think Tanks, Brookings Institute, influential, Policy, Public Policy,