Risky Business
Let's put it this way: sure, he took risks all this life. But it wasn't until 2005, when Randy Houston, '91 prelaw, was confronting an imploding work situation, that he really felt the risk.
Of course, he reached this point by rejecting the career trajectory that, as a child, he'd always felt was his calling. This rejection occurred at Penn State, a school Houston had chosen for his initial career plans.
“As a kid, I always wanted to be an architectural engineer,” he says. “So I picked a school with a solid engineering program. I really liked Penn State, but after my first year, I
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realized the program wasn't for me and turned back to my first love: music.”
But Houston also knew that trying to make it as a successful musician was too unstable a career path. So he decided to go into the music business and that's how he ended up at … law school?
“A friend's father worked at the William Morris Agency, one of the biggest talent agencies in the world, and he got me a summer internship,” he explains. “Interning there for two summers, I realized that many of the agents were lawyers. If the agent wasn't a lawyer, he or she could only take a deal so far; then they would have to turn it over to a lawyer. That's when I decided to go to law school and become an entertainment lawyer.”
While at Penn State, prior to attending the University of North Carolina law school, he discovered that the field of intellectual property law—which includes trademark and copyright law—would be a perfect (and less risky) segue into entertainment law. Upon graduating from law school, Houston joined a firm in Harrisburg, then took a position with noted intellectual property firm Arnold, White & Durkee, in Austin, Texas.
“I never had any desire to go to Texas, let alone live there,” he recalls. “But I had the strangest experience: when I flew to Austin for my initial interview and the wheels of the plane I was on touched down, I suddenly knew Austin would be my home. I absolutely love it; it's a great music town.”
After the firm he was working for disintegrated, Houston worked for other large international and regional law firms and a corporate legal department before joining with five other lawyers, with whom he had never worked before, to form a boutique law firm focused exclusively on intellectual property. It was a risk for him, representing the first time he was leaving the security of a big law firm.
“I took the leap out of the established 'tall building law firm' security, as we say,” he recalls. “I quickly discovered the day-to-day difficulties of running a firm and not being able to rely on a regular salary was very different than what I'd been used to.”
But soon, that was the least of his problems. The managing partner's management did not suit the other partners. The firm eventually disintegrated and Houston and one other partner left to form their own firm. He's never looked back.
“My partner and I pinch ourselves weekly, if not daily,” he says. “We have been more successful, more prosperous and happier than ever.”
And he's comfortable taking even more risks these days. Houston has become friends with several of his musician and artist clients who have asked him to take more of an active role in their careers—that of manager.
“I've been doing that informally for my musician friends for quite a few years,” he says. “Now I'm moving more into managing some of my clients' acting and film careers.”
Houston credits his ability to evolve into different facets of his interests from his time at Penn State. After he'd decided to quit the engineering program, he spent one semester at home in New York. It didn't take him long to realize what he was missing.
“When I came back for my sophomore year, I really took notice of what the University had to offer,” he recalls. “I switched my major to Prelaw, which was a combination of business, political science, and English. I couldn't have had better preparation for the twists and turns my career has taken.”