Bloomberg

From Harvard Law School To A Career In Film

How can you break into the movie business? Here is one Harvard Law School graduate's story.

By David Lat on December 04, 2013 4:32 pm

It’s December, a big month for movies. This is the time of year when studios trot out some of their most prestigious pictures, hunting for Oscar gold, and when they release their holiday blockbusters, in the hunt for cold hard cash. With Christmas and New Year’s falling on Wednesdays this year (yay!), there should be ample time for moviegoing.

But some lawyers want to do more than just watch movies; they want to make them. Over the years, many lawyers have entered the film world, some on the business side and some on the creative side.

Interested in having some adventures in the screen trade? Let’s meet a Harvard Law School graduate who is now an award-winning writer and filmmaker….

Writer and director Colen Wiley graduated from Harvard Law School and the filmmaking program at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. Despite his valuable HLS degree, Wiley never practiced, choosing instead to pursue his lifelong interest in film. He fields a variety of questions — what led him to go into making movies after HLS, whether he regrets not practicing law, and the comparative difficulty of law school versus film school — in this interview with Spencer Mazyck of Bloomberg Law:

Kudos to Colen Wiley for having the courage to go down the road less taken. Walking away from the lucrative opportunities that a Harvard law degree opens up isn’t easy, but you can’t put a price on creative fulfillment and freedom.

P.S. Some of you may have noticed that this interview was recorded some time ago. Our friends at Bloomberg Law were unable to record a new interview this week, but they directed us to this favorite from their archives.

Stealth Lawyer: Colen Wiley, Filmmaker [Bloomberg Law via YouTube]

Earlier: Prior ATL coverage of career alternatives for attorneys