Jim Steyer

Jim Steyer
Born	James Pearson Steyer 1956 New York City
Occupation	Child advocate, civil rights attorney, professor and author
Years active	1988-present
Spouse(s)	Elizabeth Butler Steyer
Children	four
Family	Tom Steyer (brother)

James Pearson "Jim" Steyer (born 1956) is an American child advocate, civil rights attorney, professor and author. He is most known for founding Common Sense Media, an organization dedicated to improving media and entertainment lives for kids and families.

Steyer was born in New York City in 1956. His mother, Marnie (née Fahr), was a teacher of remedial reading at the Brooklyn House of Detention, and his father, Roy Henry Steyer, was a partner in the New York law firm of Sullivan & Cromwell. His father was Jewish and his mother Episcopalian. He has two brothers: Hume Steyer and Tom Steyer. Steyer was highly influenced by his mother, who would sometimes bring him to class as her teaching assistant. In an article in the Los Angeles Times, Steyer’s college friend, Mike Tollin, said "[Jim’s] whole focus on kids comes from his close relationship with his mother…She was the kind of woman who would sit you down, ask you how things were, and you felt like you needed to tell her the truth."

Steyer graduated early from Philips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire and worked with his mother teaching remedial reading at a public school in Harlem. Steyer later graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Stanford University where he was awarded the Lindsey Peters Award for Outstanding Work in American Government. After two years of community development work in Asia, he attended Stanford Law School and graduated in 1983. During law school, Steyer founded the East Palo Alto Community Law Project, a non-profit legal services center for low-income families in East Palo Alto, California. After Stanford, he became a law clerk for Justice Allen Broussard of the California Supreme Court. He then served as a civil rights attorney for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. There, he helped spearhead the Poverty and Justice Program, focused on developing national legal and legislative strategies on behalf of disadvantaged African Americans.

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