David E. Kelley

David Edward Kelley (born April 4, 1956) is an American television writer, producer, and former attorney.

He has created and/or produced a number of television series including Doogie Howser, M.D., Picket Fences, Chicago Hope, The Practice and its spin-off Boston Legal, Ally McBeal, Boston Public, Goliath, Big Little Lies, and Big Sky.

Kelley is one of very few screenwriters to have created shows that have aired on all four top commercial U.S. television networks (ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC) as well as cable giant HBO.

Kelley was born in Waterville, Maine, raised in Belmont, Massachusetts, and attended the Belmont Hill School.

His father is Jack Kelley, a member of the United States Ice Hockey Hall of Fame.

Kelley was a stick boy for the New England Whalers of the World Hockey Association in their inaugural season of 1972–1973 when his father coached the team.

Kelley was captain of the Princeton Tigers men's ice hockey team at Princeton University, where he graduated in 1979 with a bachelor's degree in political science.

Demonstrating early on a creative and quirky bent, in his junior year at Princeton, Kelley submitted a paper for a political science class about John F. Kennedy's plot to kill Fidel Castro, written as a poem.

For his senior thesis, he turned the Bill of Rights into a play.

"I made each amendment into a character", he said.

In 1983, while considering it only a hobby, Kelley began writing a screenplay, a legal thriller, which was optioned in 1986 and later became the Judd Nelson feature film From the Hip in 1987.

In 1986, Steven Bochco was searching for writers with a law background for his new NBC legal series, L.A. Law.

His agent sent him Kelley's movie script for From the Hip.

Enthusiastic, Bochco made him a writer and story editor for the show.

During this first year, Kelley kept his law office in Boston as a hedge.

However, his involvement in the show only expanded.

In the second year, he became executive story editor and co-producer.

Finally, in 1989, Bochco stepped away from the series, making Kelley the executive producer.

While executive producer, Kelley received two Emmys for Outstanding Writing in a Dramatic Series and the show received the award for Outstanding Drama Series for both years.

For the first five seasons that he was involved with the show, he wrote or co-wrote two out of three episodes.

Kelley left after the fifth season in 1991 and ratings began to fall.

As Newsday ' s TV critic wrote, "The difference between good and bad L.A. Law ... was David Kelley."

Midway through the sixth season, both Bochco and Kelley were brought in as creative consultants after the show received bad press about its decline in quality.

In 1992, after co-creating Doogie Howser, M.D. with his mentor Steven Bochco, Kelley formed his own production company, David E. Kelley Productions, making a three-series deal with CBS.

Its first creation, Picket Fences, airing in 1992 and influenced by Twin Peaks and Northern Exposure, focused on the police department in the fictional quirky town of Rome, Wisconsin.

Kelley wrote most of the episodes for the first three years.

The show was critically acclaimed but never found a sizable audience.

Picket Fences went on for four years, receiving a total of 14 Emmy awards including consecutive Emmys for Outstanding Drama Series for its first and second seasons.

Under pressure from CBS to develop a second series even though he didn't feel ready to produce two shows simultaneously, Kelley launched the medical drama Chicago Hope, starring Mandy Patinkin and Adam Arkin, which premiered in 1994.

Airing at the same time as the season's other new medical drama, NBC's ER, the ultimate ratings leader, Chicago Hope plotted "upscale medicine in a high-tech world run by high-priced doctors".

During its six-year run, it won seven Emmys and generally high critical praise, but only middling ratings.

Originally intending to write only the first several episodes in order to return full-time to Picket Fences, Kelley eventually wrote most of the material for both shows, a total of roughly 40 scripts.

In 1995, the fourth and final season, Kelley wrote only two episodes.

"We had almost 10 writers try to come in and take over for this one man", said Picket Fences actress Holly Marie Combs.

"The quality was not nearly what it was."

Expressing a desire to focus more on his production company and upcoming projects, Kelley ceased day-to-day involvement with both series in 1995, allowing others to write and produce.

"The First Amendment is a loudmouth guy who won't shut up. The Second Amendment guy, all he wanted to talk about was his gun collection. Then the 10th Amendment, the one where they say leave the rest for the states to decide, he was a guy with no self-esteem."

Also while at Princeton, he was a member of the Princeton Triangle Club.

Kelley received his Juris Doctor (J.D.) from Boston University School of Law, where he wrote for the Legal Follies, a sketch comedy group composed of Boston University law students which still holds annual performances.

He began working for a Boston law firm, mostly dealing with real estate and minor criminal cases.