Who

The cantankerous founder of American Lawyer magazine, CourtTV, and Brill's Content, Brill is now the CEO of Clear, the VIP check-in program at airports around the country.

Backstory

The son of a Far Rockaway liquor store owner, Brill attended Deerfield Academy on a scholarship before heading off to Yale and Yale Law. He never pursued the legal profession, though. Brill skipped the bar exam and took a job in journalism instead, starting his career in the early '70s writing for Clay Felker at New York. Brill eventually published a book about Jimmy Hoffa and followed Felker to Esquire, where he became a columnist. Combining his legal background with his interest in journalism, he later approached Esquire's owners about financing a magazine dedicated to the legal profession, discussions that led to American Lawyer. The title caught on quickly as Brill shook up the prim world of high-powered litigators with gossipy features (the first issue featured an exposé on Joe Flom) and the scoop on salaries and firm profits. Brill expanded the company during the 1980s, acquiring The Legal Times and ten other legal titles before taking his act to TV in 1991, when he raised capital from Time Warner, NBC, and Cablevision to launch CourtTV. The timing worked out nicely: Soon after the network's debut, the nation was consumed by legal coverage of the William Kennedy Smith rape trial and the OJ Simpson murder case, both of which helped turn CourtTV into a household name.

In 1997, Brill sold his stake in CourtTV and American Lawyer to Time Warner for a reported $30-40 million. (Bruce Wasserstein bought AmLaw from Time Warner shortly thereafter.) His next venture was the magazine Brill's Content, which he founded with backing from George Soros and Barry Diller, among others. But although the mag's critical coverage of the media industry earned high marks from fellow journalists, it failed to find a broader audience, and after a last ditch effort to combine it with Kurt Andersen and Michael Hirschorn's struggling media-centric website Inside.com, Brill's Content folded in 2001.

Of note

Although Brill's major contribution to the media/business landscape will be defined by how he transformed coverage of the legal industry in the 1980s and '90s, he's been plenty active since. Shortly after Sept 11th, he published After: How America Confronted the September 12 Era, a 760-page tome on national security. The book prompted the serial entrepreneur to launch a service Verified Identity Pass—it was later renamed FlyClear and then Clear—with financing from GE, Lehman Brothers, and Lockheed Martin. In exchange for a $99 annual subscription, the service issues biometric I.D. cards so subscribers can bypass airport security and pass through a special (and much quicker) security line reserved for Clear customers. Brill's latest earth-shattering innovation, which has been pending approval by the Transportation Safety Administration for years, is a special shoe scanning device that will spare its 65,000 or so members the indignity of removing their $900 Gucci loafers when passing through Clear's security checkpoints.

Namedrop

You can thank (or blame) Brill for a whole host of TV commentators on the air today. At CourtTV, he gave first breaks to Nancy Grace (she was an Atlanta prosecutor when he discovered her), Catherine Crier, Cynthia McFadden, Terry Moran, and Dan Abrams.

In person

The cigar-chomping, suspenders-wearing Brill has long had a reputation as a ferocious editor and brutal boss. Among journalists who used to work for him, he's best known for the vicious notes he used to jot down in the margins of reporters' copy, including "Is English your first language?" and "You should be fired."

On the side

Brill teaches an undergraduate journalism course at Yale. He also made a $1 million donation in 2006 to found the Yale Journalism Initiative.

Personal

Steve is married to Cynthia Brill, a lawyer he met at Yale; she serves as Clear's general counsel. The Brills have three kids, girl-about-town Emily, Sophie, and Sam. The family lives on Fifth Avenue, in the same building as George Fertitta. They spend weekends in Bedford.

True story

In 2003, Brill reportedly tried to put together a group of investors to buy New York. Bruce Wasserstein—who owned Brill's former baby, American Lawyer, at the time—landed the deal instead.

For the record

Brill should not be confused with Steve "Wildman" Brill, author of The Wild Vegetarian Cookbook and the leader of popular wild-food-foraging tours in New York City parks.

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