Practicing law for 27 years has given Ken Isaacson the qualifications and plenty of material to indulge his passion for writing legal thrillers. But it was his undergraduate experience at MIT that taught him to think like an author. Isaacson published his first novel, Silent Counsel, last September.
“Thinking outside the box in constructing problems and plot points is extremely helpful, and MIT is a place where you learn to think outside the box,” says Isaacson, who lives in Morristown, NJ, with his wife, Sylvia. “To construct any plot at all–and certainly to construct any intricate plot–involves a kind of analysis and analytical point of view that MIT certainly helped with.” Silent Counsel centers on a mother’s quest to learn the identity of a hit-and-run driver who killed her child. The driver hires a lawyer to negotiate a plea bargain and claims attorney-client privilege to keep his name secret.
Isaacson came to MIT as a freshman with his sights on a career with the U.S. space program. But midway through his undergraduate years, his focus shifted to law. Isaacson enrolled in Course XI, urban studies and planning, and went on to Columbia School of Law. He received his JD in 1979.
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