Stephanie Dangel's 10-year-old son recently asked her if she had stayed in Washington, D.C., after finishing a clerkship at the U.S. Supreme Court, whether she might be a sitting justice by now.

Though the year she worked for the late Justice Harry Blackmun was among the most exhilarating challenges of her career, Ms. Dangel's response was unequivocal.

"I told him I didn't want that job. I wouldn't for a minute give up what I've had since then," said Ms. Dangel, who is director of business and legal affairs for the Steeltown Entertainment Project.

Her path from the nation's highest court has included practicing in Pittsburgh's largest law firm, staying at home when her children were young, and volunteering her time at Steeltown -- a nonprofit entertainment incubator where she served on the board and as a consultant, before assuming her current position.

Not exactly a career trajectory anyone would have predicted for a Rhodes Scholar and Yale Law School graduate who had no experience in the entertainment industry prior to her association with Steeltown.

"This is not at all the type of law I thought I would be practicing," she said of her work at the organization, whose mission is to attract talent and investment to bolster the filmmaking and digital media industries in and around Pittsburgh.

"It's been a great journey, but not something I set out to be involved with," Ms. Dangel said during an interview in a conference room at WQED Multimedia in Oakland, where Steeltown maintains offices.

Ms. Dangel, 51, grew up in Hollidaysburg, Blair County, and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1984 with three degrees -- bachelor's in economics and political science, and a master's in political science.

From there she went to the University of Oxford in England as a Rhodes Scholar for a degree in modern history; then she headed to Yale Law School, where she earned her degree in 1990.

After law school, she took a summer internship at Downtown-based K&L Gates and then completed two clerkships: the first for the U.S. District Court in New York, the second for the U.S. Supreme Court.

During her year clerking for Blackmun, she was assigned to Casey v. Planned Parenthood, a significant 1992 case in which the Supreme Court upheld the basic tenet of Roe v. Wade that gave women the right to seek abortions. Also during that year, millions of Americans were riveted to radio and television broadcasts of Anita Hill's testimony during the nomination process for Justice Clarence Thomas.

Ms. Dangel recalled working a minimum 12 hours a day, seven days a week while researching and writing opinions for the Casey case and others. "It was a very tense time and a very important decision. ... It was a 5-4 decision, so we knew one vote would change everything. It was exciting and stressful. But at the end of the year, I was ready for something different."

The pull to return to Pittsburgh was twofold: First, she was going to marry Thomas Reiter, an attorney she met while interning at K&L Gates and who is now a partner at the firm, and second, "I felt a certain debt to this city" because of long periods she spent in Children's Hospital from age 11 to 16, battling a brain tumor.

When the benign tumor was removed during her sophomore year in high school, she lost sight in her right eye but vowed to adapt to her limited vision. Though her doctor told her she would never again play tennis or run hurdles in track, she did both and competed in 400-meter hurdles for Penn's women's track team.

"It gave me lots of self confidence, and empathy for people who were struggling, because I was disfigured. It pushed me to community service at a young age because I was lucky to be alive, and I was going to use that."

Back in Pittsburgh as an adult, Ms. Dangel spent six years at K&L practicing litigation, transactional and nonprofit work before the birth of her children. While at home, she cast about for volunteer activities and personal projects. She and Mr. Reiter have a daughter, 14, and twin 10-year-old boys.

At the urging of a cousin, she began dabbling in screenwriting. The cousin believed her college thesis about the impact of Marian Anderson's 1939 concert at the Lincoln Memorial on the civil rights movement would make a good screenplay, so Ms. Dangel enrolled in a screenwriting course with Carl Kurlander, Steeltown's founder.

She began volunteering for the organization in 2003, served three years as its board president and became immersed in the production side. She was co-producer of the feature documentary "My Tale of Two Cities," a story about Pittsburgh's efforts to come back from industrial decline that was written by Mr. Kurlander, who grew up here and returned from a screenwriting career in Hollywood to teach at the University of Pittsburgh and eventually resettle in his hometown.

Also, she served as executive producer for "The Shot Felt 'Round the World," a documentary about the development of the polio vaccine by Jonas Salk at Pitt in the 1950s.

Both films have played at film festivals and to U.S. and international audiences, and serve as proof of the successful film work being done locally, said Ms. Dangel.

Her current focus at Steeltown is to connect West Coast filmmakers and television writers -- especially those with local ties -- with production resources that already exist here, such as the WQED studios.

Among the many examples of Steeltown's locally "incubated" projects is a television talk show produced by Jamie Widdoes, a Squirrel Hill native whose directing credits include the TV hit "Two and a Half Men." The pilot for the talk show was shot at WQED in January and if it's picked up, it could possibly be produced here, said Ms. Dangel.

Another major goal of Steeltown is to launch a specialized investment fund that would give investors a stake in entertainment projects and then plow the earnings back into local endeavors.

A model for that effort is "R.L. Stine's The Haunting Hour: Don't Think About It," a movie by the author of the popular "Goosebumps" children's book series that was shot in the region in 2006.

Steeltown raised $900,000 from the state, foundations and private sources to invest in the film and has realized a return to date of $500,000 from DVD sales, the film's airings on the ABC Family and Cartoon networks, and sales to some international broadcasters, said Ms. Dangel.

According to documents Steeltown filed with the Internal Revenue Service in 2010, "Don't Think About It" generated $2.2 million in spending and 115 jobs in the region.

Steeltown's long-term plan is to raise $5 million to finance projects that would cost about $1 million to $2 million apiece.

"Until we have the investment leg, the industry never will be sustainable," said Ms. Dangel.

Attorneys from K&L Gates are helping to structure the investment vehicle, which she described as a social venture fund targeted primarily to local investors.

It could be a tough sell because of current economic conditions, she acknowledged, but Pittsburgh has a combination of resources widely recognized as "world class," she said, including arts organizations, experienced production crews and Carnegie Mellon University's Entertainment Technology Center.

"We're trying to leverage all of those," as well as the state's tax incentive for film projects, she said.

Despite the fulfillment she has had from her recent career, Ms. Dangel admitted to sometimes missing the action in the courts.

During last month's Supreme Court debate on the health care law, for instance, "I loved hearing the analysis and oral arguments" she said. But she still prefers her current role that allows her to "have an impact on the region and spend time with my kids. It's very adversarial [at the Supreme Court]. I'd rather collaborate with people."

First Published: April 16, 2012, 8:00 a.m.