Entertainment Attorney Donates $5 Million to Harvard Law School

Entertainment lawyer, author, and Harvard Law School graduate Bertram Fields has donated $5 million to the Law School to endow a professorship in his name, the school announced last week.

Fields, a co-founder and partner of the law firm Greenberg Glusker in Los Angeles, has represented a range of clients, including DreamWorks, MGM, Tom Cruise, The Beatles, and Tom Clancy.

After earning his bachelor’s degree at the University of California, Los Angeles in 1949, Fields graduated magna cum laude from the Law School in 1952. He characterizes his time as an editor for the Harvard Law Review as a contributor to his professional success, according to a press release from the school.

“Harvard is an institution that over the centuries has contributed enormously to American thought, especially judicial thought,” Fields said in the school’s statement. “It changed my life dramatically and had a fundamental impact on me and my career.”

Upon graduation from the Law School, Fields served in the U.S. Air Force during the Korean War, and, in 1959, he co-founded Greenberg Glusker, which now employs approximately 100 attorneys.

Fields teaches an entertainment law course at Stanford Law School and has often lectured at Harvard Law School. In addition to his legal work, he has published two novels and a biographical work on Richard III.

“Bert Fields is legendary because he sets the standard for excellence and creativity as a litigator, teacher, and author,” Law School Dean Martha L. Minow said in the school’s statement. “It is with joy that we announce this superb expression of his generosity and vision.”

—Staff writer Tyler S. Olkowski can be reached at tyler.olkowski@thecrimson.com. Follow him on Twitter @OlkowskiTyler.