Jeff Rake

Jeffrey Paul Rake is an American television producer and writer. He is known for his work on Boston Legal and creating the NBC shows Manifest, The Mysteries of Laura and Miss Match.

Biography Rake was born in Philadelphia and grew up in Encino, Los Angeles. He attended Harvard-Westlake School and graduated from Columbia University in 1990. He was the president of Columbia College Student Council during his senior year. At Columbia, he was also a classmate of television producer Gina Fattore and Academy Award-winning film producer Dede Gardner.

He received a J.D. degree from UC Berkeley School of Law, where he was a finalist in the James Patterson McBaine Honors Moot Court Competition and an executive editor of the California Law Review.

After graduating from law school, Rake clerked for two federal judges, Judge Stanley Brotman of the District of New Jersey and Judge Majorie Rendell of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania then joined one of L.A.'s top law firms, Irell & Manella. During his tenure as a lawyer, he took a leave of absence and wrote the musical Hound Dog: A hip hOpera, an alternative history of Elvis Presley starring Wayne Brady. The play premiered in 1996 in Los Angeles.

In 2017, he created Manifest. The show was initially cancelled, but was picked up by Netflix and became the third show to reach 100 days in Netflix's Top 10 charts. In August 2021, the show was renewed for a fourth season.

Los Angeles Times called him a member of the "Ex-Lawyers Club," a group of television showrunners, producers, and writers who were once lawyers before switching careers and joining the entertainment industry. Other ex-lawyers named by the Times were David E. Kelley, Carol Mendelsohn, Richard Appel, and Stephen Engel.

In June 2025, it was reported that he was co-authoring a science fiction novel that was also under consideration for development as a TV series.

Personal life and family Rake is married to Paulette Light, executive director of the Charles Bronfman prize, whom he met in college. They have four children together. He is Jewish. "As a Jewish writer, I’m inspired by Jewish themes of redemption, second chances and Tikkun olam,” he told the Jewish Journal. “We come to discover that the characters [on Manifest] are flawed human beings who’ve been given a second chance, an opportunity to redeem themselves."

Filmography