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Biography
- Roger Samuel Wolfson, J.D., M.A. (Photos
Below)
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, having written for “Century City,”
“Law and Order: SVU,” “Saving Grace,” and “The
Closer,” where one of his episodes earned Kyra Sedgwick an Emmy
Nomination. Prior to that, he served as senior counsel to four U.S. Senators,
speech writer for multiple Presidential candidates, Vice President of
one of the largest news organizations in the country, founder of his own
forty-member political consulting firm, and civil rights attorney.
In 2006, Wolfson sold his first original TV series pilot
to Sony Studios, “Shanghaied,” with Neal Moritz attached to
produce. Sony subsequently bought his second original pilot, “Zoo
Law,” also with Moritz attached. Wolfson is currently developing
three additional pilots with three other producers: Warren Littlefield,
Mosaic Media, and Marc Provissiero. He has also partnered with Academy-Award
winning producer Bruce Cohen (“American Beauty”) and Academy-Award
nominated songwriter Bird York (“Crash”) to create campaign
ads in Ohio.
Wolfson arrived in Los Angeles in January of 2003, and became represented
as a writer by Creative Artists Agency (CAA) three months later. By July
of 2003 he was a staff writer on Ed Zuckerman and Paul Attanasio's CBS
series, "Century City." Wolfson's episode, "To Know Her,"
became the first episode aired after the pilot. But by that time Wolfson
had already been hired by “Law and Order: SVU." While writing
for SVU, Wolfson wrote speeches and traveled the country as a surrogate
speaker for Senator John Kerry's Presidential campaign. Wolfson next wrote
for TNT’s "The Closer” (where his episode “Fantasy
Date” garnered Kyra Sedgewick her first Emmy Nomination) before
moving over to TNT’S “Saving Grace,” starring Academy
Award Winner Holly Hunter.
Wolfson’s political experience began when Senator Joe Lieberman
hired Wolfson straight out of law school to be Committee staff. One year
later, John Kerry made Wolfson the youngest Legislative Assistant he has
ever hired, and his first official speechwriter.
For Kerry, Wolfson wrote nearly a hundred speeches, plus the first bill
in Congress to outlaw cop-killer bullets, several amendments to the Health
Care Reform Act and even more extensive amendments to the Welfare
Reform Act, such as 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 moved on to be Chief Education Counsel for Senator Paul Wellstone,
who elevated Wolfson to a post on Ted Kennedy's Health, Education,
Labor, and Pensions Committee. Ultimately, Wolfson worked on the
reauthorization of 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 produced thirteen major amendments
to the law. Wolfson also wrote the most extensive child-care bill ever
introduced in Congress.
By the time Wolfson left the Senate, at the age of 32, he was one of the
only staffers ever to have worked full-time for the most prominent Liberal,
Moderate, and Conservative members of the Democratic Party. As such, he
has appeared on MSNBC, CNN, and AirAmerica, and has lectured to forty
different major organizations, bar associations, unions, and think tanks.
During the 2006 Writers Guild elections he was a chief strategist for
the “Writers United” slate of candidates for Board, and subsequently
was drafted to help run the media operations for the Guild during the
2007-8 Strike. He is also a blogger for the Huffington Post.
As an attorney, he has worked for four law firms, including Littler,
Mendelson, the largest labor law firm in the world, and Lieberman,
Segalof, and Wolfson, the firm his mother and Senator Lieberman founded.
Wolfson earned his law degree from the University of Pennsylvania,
where he was the Associate Editor of the University of Pennsylvania
Comparative Labor Law Journal, his Masters in Writing from Johns
Hopkins, and his Bachelors in Theater from Vassar, with highest
academic honors. He is a member of the bars of New York, Connecticut,
Washington, DC, and the U.S. Supreme Court, having been presented to the
Chief Justice by Senators Jim Jeffords and Jeff Bingaman.
Wolfson lives in Marina del Rey aboard the '42 sailing catamaran, Kinship
II, which he helped sail from Manhattan to Los Angeles in 2003.
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