Today we’d like to introduce you to Alysia Anderson.
So, before we jump into specific questions, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I’ve lived in Los Angeles for a little over three years now. I moved here from Houston, TX where I am originally from. I love being from Texas, mainly for state pride reasons, but it’s always really humored me to be from there because my parents are from the Midwest and only happened to meet at a frat party in Dallas while they were trying to avoid the snow from their hometowns. So LA resident and Houston native, by way of a Midwest snow-hating romance. It also must be said that my parents are the first people in their family to graduate from college, so maybe there was something more at work with that pairing.
By the time I started high school, I already had a pretty big crush on law. Honestly, let’s call it huge because even then, I loved the idea of helping others and arguing for a distinct end goal. Also, as a black female growing up in Texas the idea of justice was already coursing through my veins. However, mid-sophomore year, my entire world change when I watched Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver. After experiencing that level of storytelling, I immediately realized, okay sure law is my favorite crush, but film? That was pure love. I fell head over heels for cinema. I started devouring films as iconic as Casablanca and as soothing as 13 Going On 30 on a weekly basis. It also didn’t hurt that I was going through this film-loving transformation while Blockbuster was still in business.
I was having the time of my life learning about filmmaking. My high school even had a class called “Intro to Moviemaking” and instead of eating lunch with my friends, I remember I used to ask my teacher a million questions about how color impacted story structure. It was all very wonderful, but the calling of helping others was still very prevalent within me. I was just about to feel conflicted about what career I was meant to pursue before I realized that I could study Film & Television in college and then Law in law school. Entertainment law here I come!
Which brings me to the very real beginning of my pursuit to live in Los Angeles. I attended New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts for college. While I loved living and working in New York and met some of my best friends there, I didn’t leave Texas to make friends, I left Texas to make movies! Immediately after college, I started law school and even while trying to make outlines and understand what in the world a Tort was, I was producing creative projects on the side. Mid-way through law school, I moved to Los Angeles. I remember thinking about how much Los Angeles felt like a combination of Houston and New York. I didn’t know anyone in Los Angeles and made it my mission to meet as many people as I could. I attended classes at UCLA, lived in Westwood accordingly, and sent out cold-emails asking attorneys within the entertainment industry to get coffee with me. There were some weeks where I got zero responses and other weeks, I would have so many coffee meetings that I was stunned that caffeine poisoning didn’t exist. Not unlike New York, I met some incredible, life-changing people and to this day I remain eternally grateful for the kindness that was shown to me and time that these people managed to block out for me, amidst their own busy schedules.
Not long after leaving academia, I launched into working in entertainment law. I’m proud to say that I’m a working, licensed attorney that specializes in media, intellectual property, and working with creatives. It’s been a wonderful, eventful journey of determination, and honestly, a lot of love. Since high school, my crush on law turned into a committed loving relationship, and my immediate adoration for cinema has evolved into a life long passion with a fire that I don’t see dimming any time soon. I am helping people as a lawyer, still writing, and loving collaborating with creatives as time goes on. I do not think I would have gotten to this point if I wasn’t truly enamored with every aspect of everything I have committed to. I can easily say that despite the turbulence of this journey, moving nearly constantly, and having to re-introduce myself at every turn, it was all absolutely worth it.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
My road, thankfully, has always been very clear, but far from smooth. I knew I wanted to be an entertainment attorney and work in Los Angeles. So I felt very certain when I bought my one-way ticket to Los Angeles, but when I got here – I did not know anyone. Thankfully, because of the internet and the power of LinkedIn, I was able to send out cold-emails to strangers, asking them for coffee so that I could network with them, but I rarely got a response. If I sent hundreds of cold emails when I began my career in entertainment law, less than a hundred people got back to me. I am eternally and immensely grateful to those people who did get back to me, but that entire process was far from easy.
However, even though it was a difficult transition in my life, it was also very humbling and exciting in a positive, scary way. I never knew what would happen or if I would ever reap the fruits of my labor. Entertainment law truly is that precarious and unpredictable. But whenever someone successful would answer my random coffee request and we’d talk for hours, I would leave that coffee shop feeling like I could fly. I wasn’t quite where I wanted to be yet, but things were happening. It wasn’t the smoothest road, but I always felt like I was in motion, going somewhere.
We’d love to hear more about your work and what you are currently focused on. What else should we know?
I am a licensed attorney who specializes in media, intellectual property, and working with creatives. I especially love working with entrepreneurs because it taps into my immense passion for creating quality, impactful content and bringing ideas to life. I love deal-making, protecting businesses, and helping clients establish their intellectual property in order to further empower their brand.
I am immensely proud of my business for being the legal jumping off point for dozens of creatives, small businesses, and early stage entrepreneurs. I’ve helped my clients do things ranging from registering their company trademarks, to launching their online beauty businesses, to also working with them to negotiate agreements for their creative careers. I absolutely adore being the legal piece of the equation that helps someone peacefully and confidently delve deeper into their career or start their business.
In the wake of the recent racial injustices, I have also branched out into speaking publicly and publishing articles about the intense societal racial revolution that needs to take place in America for racial justice. As an unapologetically proud black woman, while I am excited about my career’s promise, I fully acknowledge the amount of work that still needs to be done. As I write this, Breonna Taylor’s murderers still walk freely. This type of injustice cannot be continued for the Black Community, nor should is continue to exist in this world. I wrote about this at length in my essay titled “Apologize & Commit” which can be found in full on my Instagram page.
What were you like growing up?
When I was very young, as in under the age of seven, I was fairly quiet and shy. Nevertheless, my mom made sure that I was raised with a lot of confidence, by telling me even then to not care about what other people thought. Simple as that. Accordingly, I was able to really unabashedly delve into a lot of different interests like watching Sailor Moon, reading Wishbone books, and nerding out over Spider-Man with my older brother, Ricky Anderson II, who was my hero at the time. I’ll be honest, life was good. However, once my brother left for college, I felt a distinct void in my life and decided to fill it by actually having a personality. So I began talking more and intentionally trying to be outgoing, as in before my mom dropped me off at school, I would plan out what to talk about with my friends and rehearse my jokes in the car. Thankfully, practice makes perfect and I eventually grew into being a more outgoing kid, who still undeniably idolized her brother, and also wasn’t afraid to crack a joke or two.
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: alysia_anderson
- Twitter: alysia_anderson
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