Kim Eisler

Kim Eisler grew up in Lynchburg, Va., and graduated from George Washington University in 1974 with a BA in Political Science. Working his way through college as a copyboy at Time Magazine, Kim was on desk duty on the day of the Watergate break-in in 1973. When he suggested a story on the burglary, the New York office replied "passing on Watergate-too local." Thus was the way cleared for Woodward and Bernstein to become legends. After college Kim became a staff writer at the Delta Democrat Times working for legendary Southern editor Hodding Carter III. After uncovering a massive scandal regarding the operations of the Greenville-Lake Village Bridge, Kim moved his investigative reporting niche to The Tampa Tribune, eventually becoming the state capital bureau chief in Tallahassee. After five years with the Tribune, Kim took a job at the Los Angeles Daily Journal, the nation's most prestigious daily paper for the legal profession. After just a year, he was scooped up the American Lawyer Magazine, run by Steven Brill, later to be the founder of Court TV. It was American Lawyer that Kim established his credentials as the leading law firm reporter in the United States and that expertise landed him a contract as the author of Shark Tank, the story of how the country's largest law firm, Finley Kumble, crumbled as the law firm version of a Ponzi Scheme. Shark Tank's success led to the publication of The Last Liberal, a biography of influential Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan Jr. Kim's third book was Revenge of the Pequots, the tale of how Foxwoods Casino in Connecticut was put together and changed the landscape of gambling in America. After several years writing magazine articles, Kim's newest book Masters of the Game, the story of how Williams & Connolly law firm elected a president, freed an assassin and won a world series, is scheduled for publication on June 22 by Thomas Dunne/St. Martin's Press.