I'm a freelance journo at https://jhandel.news, former contributor at Puck (2022-2024), and former contributing editor at The Hollywood Reporter, where I wrote over 1,400 stories from 2010-2020, as well as having previously blogged hundreds of articles for the HuffPost. I'm also a practicing transactional entertainment and technology attorney at Feig/Finkel in Los Angeles and independently, and a former computer scientist. Longer bio at http://www.jhandel.com/bio.
My writing has also been published in/on the Los Angeles Times, Variety, Billboard, Campaigns & Elections, Los Angeles Business Journal, LA Daily Journal, Forbes.com and IMDb.com.
I'm a graduate of Harvard College in applied math and computer science and of Harvard Law School. I've appeared over 1,600 times as a commentator on entertainment and technology legal and labor issues on/in international, national and local television, radio, print and online media.
I'm the author of several books, including The New Zealand Hobbit Crisis, which tells the story of an attempt to unionize actors on The Hobbit; and Hollywood on Strike!, which chronicles and analyzes the Hollywood writers strike of 2007-2008 and the ensuing Screen Actors Guild stalemate that lasted through mid-2009.
I've been an adjunct professor at UCLA, USC and Southwestern law schools, and am a non-resident research fellow at Rutgers and a member of the Television Academy (the group that awards the primetime Emmys), and was named by the Daily Journal as one of the top 100 lawyers in California in 2008 based on my writers strike coverage. I'm also an associate member of the Dramatists Guild and the Society of Composers & Lyricists. Prior to law school, I worked in the computer industry and was involved in local politics.
