{"id":3450,"date":"2019-10-17T11:49:11","date_gmt":"2019-10-17T15:49:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.porticomagazine.ca\/?p=3450"},"modified":"2020-10-28T14:40:08","modified_gmt":"2020-10-28T18:40:08","slug":"lawyer-turned-doctor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/porticomagazine.ca\/2019\/10\/lawyer-turned-doctor\/","title":{"rendered":"Lawyer turned ‘Doctor’"},"content":{"rendered":"

David Hoselton\u2019s law degree didn\u2019t make him a lawyer. But it definitely made him a better writer.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re asking me why I took four and a half years of my life and flushed it down the toilet, it was because I thought all lawyers were literally like Perry Mason,\u201d says the 1997 bachelor of arts U of G alumnus, speaking of the lead character of a popular courtroom drama he watched when he was a kid.<\/p>\n

A successful Hollywood writer, Hoselton was interviewed on speaker phone as he drove to Santa Monica from his home in Los Angeles to begin his writing workday.<\/p>\n

He is part of a 12-member writing team currently working on Season 3 of ABC\u2019s The Good Doctor.<\/i> Each writer is assigned an episode. He\u2019s crafting episode 5.<\/p>\n

Hoselton got his big break in Hollywood when the screenplay he wrote with his law school buddy Lorne Cameron called Like Father, Like Son <\/i>became a 1987 hit movie. He has been writing for movies and television ever since \u2013 more than 30 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing raised on TV, I actually thought a lawyer just appeared in court and there\u2019d be a criminal on the stand and you\u2019d force them to confess and save the day, like Perry Mason,\u201d he says. \u201cSo, I thought it would be really cool to be a defence lawyer or criminal prosecutor. By the end of the first year of law school at the University of Toronto, I thought, \u2018This is probably not going to land for me.\u2019\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

\"DavidNo quitter, Hoselton finished his law degree so he would have something to fall back on in case other pursuits fell through. Degree in hand, he leapt into screenwriting. As his Hollywood career took off, he began to see how his legal training applied to writing.<\/p>\n

\u201cLaw is rooted in the analysis of facts and the presentation of two opposing viewpoints and how to support those two viewpoints,\u201d he explained, as he cruised along the Pacific Coast section of his commute, remarking on the early morning surfers. \u201cAnd that is really the basis of writing dialogue or dramatic conflict.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also made invaluable personal and professional connections both at U of G and in law school, including perhaps the most important one of his life. He met his wife, Brenda Skelly, at U of G in a criminology class. They have been married for nearly 36 years. \u201cI told her I loved her on the U of G campus.\u201d<\/p>\n

Without really knowing why, Hoselton gravitated into poetry and creative writing courses at U of G, only understanding later their deep impact.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe creative freedom I found at U of G was the freedom that took me all the way down to California.\u201d<\/p>\n

He met Cameron and his current boss, Dave Shore, in law school. \u201cThat ended up being my way into the movie and television industry.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hoselton\u2019s family moved to Guelph when David started elementary school.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe creative freedom I found at U of G was the freedom that took me all the way down to California.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cMy educational experience was basically all on College Avenue in Guelph,\u201d he says. \u201cI went to College Avenue Public School, then to Centennial CVI for high school, and then I took quite the big leap by going all the way up College Avenue past Edinburgh Road to the University of Guelph.\u201d<\/p>\n

He joked that the only thing that qualified him to be a TV<\/p>\n

writer was his voracious appetite for TV-watching. He even spent his own money to buy copies of TV Guide<\/i> when he was young.<\/p>\n

For his work on The Good Doctor<\/i>, Hoselton commutes each morning to a Santa Monica office, where writers work together in close quarters. It\u2019s not unlike a typical office environment, but the work itself is very atypical.<\/p>\n

\u201cWriting is a lot of work, but the upside is it\u2019s really creative,\u201d he says. \u201cYou get to tell not only great stories, but you get to work with really great people. The writers are all smart, funny, enlightened people and you\u2019re surrounded by them all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hoselton has written for, produced or created stories for TV series including Bull<\/i>, Houdini and Doyle<\/i>, Chicago P.D.<\/i> and House<\/i>. He\u2019s blunt about what it takes to survive in the business.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe thing you come to understand about Hollywood is it\u2019s based on money and very predictable that way. If they can make money off you, they want to be with you, and if they can\u2019t, they don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

Writing for a network show or a hit movie is about the best-paying writing gig you can get, he says. But the sense of creative fulfillment that comes from the work may be the most satisfying aspect of it.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery time I get on a new project, there is always that creative challenge of having to do something new and creative,\u201d he says. \u201cWriting something that challenges you and takes all your talents is what writing is all about.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

David Hoselton\u2019s law degree didn\u2019t make him a lawyer. But it definitely made him a better writer. \u201cIf you\u2019re asking me why I took four and a half years of my life and flushed it down the toilet, it was because I thought all lawyers were literally like Perry Mason,\u201d says the 1997 bachelor of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":3820,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_FSMCFIC_featured_image_caption":"David Hoselton (far right) on the set of Houdini and Doyle.","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_nocaption":null,"_FSMCFIC_featured_image_hide":null},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nLawyer turned 'Doctor' -<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/porticomagazine.ca\/2019\/10\/lawyer-turned-doctor\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Lawyer turned 'Doctor' -\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"David Hoselton\u2019s law degree didn\u2019t make him a lawyer. 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