Roger Wolfson

Roger Wolfson has risen to positions of prominence in the fields of entertainment, politics, news, and law. He is a professional television and film writer who has written for five network TV series. He currently runs a TV series on Crackle about the U.S. Embassy in Rome, and has sold eight original television series of his own, to studios including Sony, ABC, CBS, Universal Cable Productions, and A&E, and to networks including CBS, Bravo, and Lifetime. He has been staff for four U.S. Senators, written speeches for presidential candidates, been Vice President of Channel One News, founded his own strategic consulting firm, and worked as a lawyer. As a writer, Wolfson arrived in LA in January of 2003. By July he was a staff writer on Ed Zuckerman and Paul Attanasio's CBS series, "Century City," starring Viola Davis. Even though Wolfson was the most junior writer on the series, his episode, "To Know Her," became the first episode aired after the pilot. Wolfson then wrote for "Law and Order: SVU." During that time, he traveled across Ohio as a surrogate speaker for Senator John Kerry's Presidential campaign. Wolfson went on to write for "The Closer," where his episode "Fantasy Date" garnered Kyra Sedgewick her first Emmy Nomination. He then wrote for TNT's "Saving Grace," starring Holly Hunter, and USA's "Fairly Legal," starring Sarah Shahi. For his own projects, Wolfson has worked with producers Neal Moritz, Ed Bernero, Dennis Leary, Charlize Theron, Meryl Poster, Peter Tolan, and Tim Kring. Wolfson currently serves as a speechwriter for Senators, Presidential Candidates, public figures, and CEOs. He has written speeches for the Democratic National Convention, for the fiftieth anniversary of the March on Washington, for Ted Talks, and major corporate events. Much of Wolfson's work stems from his background in politics. His first political job after law school was on Senator Joe Lieberman's Governmental Affairs Subcommittee. One year later, Senator John Kerry made Wolfson the youngest Legislative Assistant he'd ever hired, and his first official speechwriter. Wolfson wrote or helped write dozens of speeches for Kerry, plus the first bill in Congress to outlaw cop-killer bullets, several amendments to the Health Care Reform Act and to the Welfare Reform Act, including the Senate-passed "Kerry Parental Involvement Act" and "Kerry Expanded School Day Act." Wolfson also wrote Kerry's amendments to the Rescissions Bill that successfully restored $14 million for Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services and $100 million for the Safe and Drug Free Schools Program. Wolfson was also in charge of Kerry's successful efforts to win $90 million of funding for Youthbuild. Wolfson then became Chief Education Counsel for Senator Paul Wellstone, which meant simultaneously serving as Labor Committee Staff for Senator Ted Kennedy. In these roles, Wolfson helped reauthorize virtually every major federal education law, from the $5 billion Individuals with Disabilities Education Act to the $12 billion Workforce Investment Act. During consideration of the $52 billion Higher Education Act alone, Wolfson developed thirteen major amendments to the law. He also wrote the most extensive child-care bill introduced in Congress to that point, and the first federal funding bill for Charter Schools. By the time Wolfson left the Senate, at 32, he was one of the few staffers ever to work for (at the time) the most prominent Liberal, Moderate, and Conservative Senators in the Democratic Party. He has appeared on MSNBC, CNN, NBC, and AirAmerica, and has lectured to forty different major organizations, bar associations, unions, and think tanks. He partnered with Oscar-winning producer Bruce Cohen and Oscar-nominated songwriter Bird York to create campaign ads. During the 2006 Writers Guild elections, Wolfson was a strategist for the "Writers United" slate of candidates for Board, and subsequently helped run the media operations for the Guild during the 2007-8 Strike. He has been a judge and awards presenter for many different events, including the annual "Voice Awards" held at Paramount Studios. He was one of the earliest bloggers for the Huffington Post. As an attorney, Wolfson has worked for Littler, Mendelson, the largest labor law firm in the world, and Lieberman, Segalof, and Wolfson, the firm his mother and Senator Lieberman founded. At the time when he served as Vice President of Channel One News, it was the sole news program watched by a third of all American teenagers every school day. While earning his law degree from the University of Pennsylvania, Wolfson served as Associate Editor of the University of Pennsylvania Comparative Labor Law Journal. He also holds a Masters in Writing from Johns Hopkins, and a Bachelors in Theater from Vassar, with highest academic honors. He is a graduate of the WGA Showrunners Training Program, and a (currently inactive) member of the bars of New York, Connecticut, Washington, DC, and the U.S. Supreme Court. Wolfson also teaches an advanced course in screenwriting at Johns Hopkins University. Since 2012, Wolfson has held a volunteer appointment in Mayor Eric Garcetti's administration, as Commissioner of Animal Services for Los Angeles. Los Angeles has the second largest shelter system in the country, and in 2017, it is expected to become the largest shelter system in the world to achieve No-Kill status. While living on a '42 Catamaran, which he had helped sail from New York to Los Angeles in 2003, Wolfson began offering a free series of lectures, salons, and concerts to the Los Angeles Community. In 2011, when he moved to his house in Silver Lake, he migrated those events to an Amphitheater he designed and built alongside his house. The LA Times ran a front page, column one article about his community-building events in June of 2013.