Marshall Goldberg has had a varied career as both a lawyer and writer.

An honors graduate from Harvard College and valedictory speaker at Stanford Law School, Goldberg clerked for Judge Robert F. Peckham of the U.S. District Court in San Francisco. He went on to become Counsel for the U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights, where he was lead counsel on the extension of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Civil Rights Attorneys’ Fees Bill. Later he served in the Justice Department as legislative liaison for the Civil Rights Division, as well as a litigator in civil rights cases against the North Carolina state prison and mental hospital system.

In 1979 Goldberg moved to Los Angeles to try his hand at writing, and spent the next 24 years writing or producing such shows as “Diff’rent Strokes,” “The Jeffersons,” “Paper Chase,” “Newhart,” “L.A. Law,” “It’s Garry Shandling’s Show,” and “Life Goes On,” along with eight television movies, three screenplays and an animated feature. He has been a Humanitas Prize and Writers Guild Award finalist, and taught screenwriting at USC Film School.

From 2003-2005 Goldberg put aside his writing career to serve as General Counsel to the Writers Guild of America, west, where he was responsible for all legal matters involving the Guild’s 11,000 members. Among his duties were overseeing grievances and arbitrations, assisting in collective bargaining negotiations, and counseling the Board of Directors on legal and constitutional matters. Eventually he was named the Guild’s Deputy Executive Director.