Third act

Hollywood comes calling for Alan Barinholtz (JD ’80)

Alan Barinholtz (JD ’80) got the call shortly before Thanksgiving 2021. Someone in Hollywood was looking for a retired or semiretired lawyer with improv experience to star in a new courtroom comedy series. Would he be interested? 

The caller was Alan’s son Ike Barinholtz, a comedic actor known for Mad TV and The Mindy Project, who encouraged his father to audition. After all, the part was something the elder Barinholtz—a veteran lawyer with long-honed performance chops—had been preparing for his entire life.

Alan Barinholtz, then 70, landed the role of Judge Alan Rosen on Amazon Freevee’s 2023 hit mockumentary Jury Duty, which would go on to receive four Emmy nominations.

And Hollywood keeps calling. Since Jury Duty, the longtime personal injury attorney joined the Screen Actors Guild–American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, secured an agent, and scored appearances in several TV and film projects, including the Netflix series Running Point, NBC’s workplace comedy St. Denis Medical, Apple TV+’s Physical and The Studio, and the Ben Affleck–led film The Accountant 2. 

In August 2024, Alan and Ike competed on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, becoming the first duo to win the $1,000,000 top prize for charity (the American Sign Language program at Los Encinos School, which Alan’s grandson—the son of his other child, actor Jon Barinholtz—attends).

Barinholtz grew up in Skokie and majored in theater, dreaming of becoming a stage actor in New York. After a brief time in the Big Apple, he returned to Chicago, trying a variety of jobs before enrolling at the School of Law.

Over a 40-plus-year law career, Barinholtz never really stopped performing. Whenever his actor sons Ike and Jon came back to Chicago to perform improv, he sometimes joined them on stage—and the parallels between acting and lawyering are not lost on him. “When you’re presenting to a jury, you’re playing to an audience of 12,” he says. “I was a performer. I really enjoyed it. I studied improvisation. I learned how to think on my feet.” 

Today, he says he feels lucky to have finally caught his acting break. “If you love something, don’t give up,” Barinholtz says, “because 50 years later, look what’s happened to me. Anything’s possible.” - Kristi Turnbaugh (July 2026)