10 Biggest Feuds In Star Trek History

Leonard Maizlish was Gene Roddenberry's lawyer and to say that he was not well liked by almost everyone who cared to comment would be underselling it to the extreme. He has been called both 'evil' and a 'scumbag' for the way that he acted during the first two years of Star Trek: The Next Generation, with plenty of examples as to why.

David Gerrold has been the longest serving public critic of Maizlish's. He has recounted many stories of how Maizlish would edit and redact scripts, violating Writer's Guild of America laws, often done in the dead of night. Maizlish, Gerrold claims, would sneak into offices and rifle through papers while making his 'notes.'

Robert Justman corroborated some of these claims, also speaking about a casting session in which Maizlish was present - asleep, and snoring loudly (leading to the only true fight that Justman and Roddenberry had.)

Rick Berman spoke about being handed a script covered in notes that Maizlish claimed had been Roddenberry's, though Berman was certain the handwriting was different.

Maizlish was eventually banned from the production lot, though he continued to appear for some time afterward. Gerrold later spoke about a much nastier clash after the attempted submission of his 'Blood and Fire' script, which had direct allegories to the AIDS crisis. Maizlish, according to Gerrold, called him a 'Fa**ot', which lead to a threatened lawsuit between the two.

For further details, we thoroughly recommened the documentary Chaos On The Bridge!