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L.A. and BU Law
Convocation to hear TV producer David E. Kelley

David E. Kelley used to write comedy sketches for the School of Law's annual Legal Follies, not for a moment anticipating a career in the entertainment industry.

	TV's legal eagle: David E. Kelley (LAW'83), the producer and prolific writer behind such award-winning television series as L.A. Law, Ally McBeal, and The Practice, will deliver the School of Law convocation address.

"I never even in college thought writing was something I intended to do," he told the New York Times in a March 1998 interview. "I guess I probably had characters in my head as a kid but never thought I'd put them into prime time."

When Kelley (LAW'83) delivers the school's convocation address on May 20, however, he will speak not only as a lawyer but also as a wildly successful Hollywood writer and producer.

Kelley was born in Waterville, Maine. He attended Belmont High School in Belmont, Mass., and graduated from Princeton in 1979 with a bachelor of arts in political science. After earning his Juris Doctor at BU, Kelley joined the Boston law firm Fine & Ambrogne and penned a screenplay in his spare time. A client brought the script to the attention of producer Dino De Laurentiis, who made it into the 1986 film From the Hip. Kelley went on to become a writer and consultant for television's L.A. Law. He then moved up to coproducer, supervising producer, and finally executive producer of the series, which ran from 1986 to 1992 and won Emmy awards for outstanding drama series for three straight years.

In the early 1990s Kelley created and produced the television series Picket Fences and Chicago Hope. Subsequently he introduced The Practice, a gritty, realistic portrayal of the legal world, and Ally McBeal, a comedy featuring the personal struggles, fantasies, and neuroses of a female lawyer. In conceiving both shows, Kelley placed the fictional law firms in Boston; his latest innovation is Boston Public, a dramatic series about an urban high school.

Kelley also produced the films To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday, starring his wife, Michelle Pfeiffer, Mystery, Alaska, starring Burt Reynolds, and Lake Placid. His prolific writing for the big and small screens has earned him many honors, including Emmy, Golden Globe, and Peabody awards and the Paul Selvin Award from the Writers Guild of America.

In 1992 Kelley received a Boston University Alumni Award for distinguished service to his profession. His father, Jack Kelley (SED'52), who was BU's hockey coach from 1962 to 1972, coached the Hartford Whalers, and served as president of the Pittsburgh Penguins, received an Alumni Award in 1970.

Kelley and Pfeiffer have two children, Claudia Rose and John Henry.

Read the sidebar "Honors aplenty"

11 May 2001
Boston University
Office of University Relations