Lights, Lawyers, Action!

As for achieving work-life balance in such a pressurized field, Gilbert-Lurie says, “You have to feed your soul, not just professional ambitions.” He prioritizes being “super transparent” with clients — his impressive list also includes Sandra Bullock, Jerry Bruckheimer, Drew Carey, Claire Danes, Tina Fey, Michael J. Fox, Chuck Lorre, and Patrick Stewart — and says they value consistent candor over the glib schmoozing agent stereotype.

The proof? Wolf left a surprise Bentley in Gilbert-Lurie’s driveway on his 50th birthday, and last year told Variety that they have the most successful lawyer-client relationship in television business history: “I can say without hesitation I wouldn’t be where I am today without Cliff.”

Scott Edelman ’84, one of just five lawyers named to The Hollywood Reporter’s 2022 Legal Legends list along with Gilbert-Lurie, sees a clear parallel between thriving entertainment lawyers and the entertainment world itself: the ability to stay resolute yet nimble.

“The industry is extraordinarily resilient,” he says, citing challenges posed by COVID, writer strikes, platform growth, and consolidation. “It’s full of bright, committed people who have responded successfully to every change they’ve confronted, and are continuing to do so.”

Edelman vaulted to prominence in 2004 as lead counsel in a fraud trial against a music producer over fake movie budgets. When a key witness turned on him on the stand and started testifying for the other side, Edelman pivoted to a deft line of questioning — showing how the witness lied about what he planned to say in court — and wound up winning a $120 million jury verdict.

A fitting example for how entertainment lawyers need to stay on their toes.

“Just think of all the tech changes I’ve seen in my 40-year-plus career,” says Edelman, who co-chaired Gibson Dunn’s media, entertainment, and technology practice group and was its first national pro bono chair before recently retiring from the firm to begin a mediation practice. “From the advent of VCRs and computers, CDs, and the internet, to downloading, streaming, and everything else in between, it’s astounding.”

Daniel Schacht ’08 spent 10 years after college as a working bass player, ran a recording studio, and saw how important a contract was to protect young artists and musicians. He read books like Donald Passman’s All You Need to Know About the Music Business and Nolo’s Music Law: How to Run Your Band’s Business.

These days, he heads Donahue Fitzgerald’s music and entertainment practice, co-chairs its intellectual property group, and teaches Music Law at his alma mater.

With world-renowned musicians and companies as his clients — including Missy Elliott, Carlos Santana, and China’s largest online content distributor — he brings abundant experience and enthusiasm to the classroom.

“Interest in music has only grown as we see what an important part of the culture and business it is,” Schacht says. “It’s hard to imagine TikTok and YouTube without music, and a large part of the interest in AI connects with music. Music remains a connection point.”

UC Berkeley Law’s roster of music and other entertainment law-focused courses keeps growing, along with a surging student journal (see “Surging Journal Stays Ahead of the Game”) and programs with other departments on campus. Last spring, the law school and the Haas School of Business presented a student-led conference on adapting to disruption in the digital era.

Connecting people seeking greater involvement with media, entertainment, and technology, the event featured C-suite executives, industry leaders, and other experts across the entertainment landscape. Recent Berkeley Journal of Entertainment & Sports Law Co-Editor-in-Chief Cassidi Mignuolo ’25 moderated a keynote discussion with Schacht, who addressed the relationship between licensing and free content-based social media.

“He was also able to give a solid backdrop of copyright law, including how music and voice likeness rights are affected by AI,” Mignuolo says. “I think that was extremely useful for non-law students.”

President of the Sports and Entertainment Law Society during his student days, Schacht has also developed a practice of representing artists’ estates, including those of Sonny Bono and Malik Taylor, aka Phife Dawg from A Tribe Called Quest. For some, he serves as outside general counsel and handles every legal matter. For others, he takes on a more specific area, such as trademarks or litigation.

“What’s wonderful about artists is that their vision and endeavors so often lead to interesting and satisfying legal work,” he says, noting that growing partnerships between the law school and business school are enormously valuable to students pursuing entertainment work.

“UC Berkeley Law does a great job fostering creative attorneys who have an excellent legal foundation, but also the skills to apply the law to new and uncertain areas,” Schacht says. “Working with business students is like working with your future clients — it can give great insight into what it looks like to act as general counsel to a company in a new and creative field.” — Andrew Cohen

Disney lawyer Sandhya Kogge ’09, lead counsel for the company’s Platform Distribution Legal group, is no stranger to timely pivots. A federal prosecutor before shifting gears, she now negotiates agreements and licensing content for Disney’s direct-to-consumer services and third-party platforms, domestically and internationally.

Growing up in Southern California, Disneyland was a special place for Kogge. These days, when her family watches a Disney movie together, her kids point to Sleeping Beauty’s castle and say, “Mom, you work there!” Kogge says that fuels her excitement in “always looking for new and innovative ways to deliver our creative storytelling on a global scale.”

Echoing the notion of agility as an occupational requirement, she says being a strong entertainment lawyer demands constantly acclimating within different areas of law, art, technology, and business: “We can encounter questions relating to contracts, labor relations, litigation, employment law, intellectual property — sometimes all on the same day.”

Given those demands, she’s not surprised to see her law school excel in the field.

“UC Berkeley Law teaches us to be great and flexible thinkers, which is the foundation of being a great lawyer,” says Kogge, a dedicated mentor to students interested in entertainment careers. “And because Berkeley is so well-respected around the globe, it opens doors for us in all kinds of spaces, including the entertainment law world.”

United Talent Agency partner Rich Klubeck ’87 — whose clients include Wes Anderson, Timothée Chalamet, Ethan and Joel Coen, Mikey Madison, Ewan McGregor, and Jon Stewart — says successful agents have tenacity, vision, a firm grasp of industry dynamics, and most of all the keen ability to understand and persuade people.

He welcomes helping talent such as Mike White (creator, writer, and director of HBO’s smash comedy “The White Lotus”) and Coralie Fargeat (writer and director of The Substance, nominated for five Oscars) surmount “the many human, market, and cultural factors stacked against them.”

Klubeck also savors the passion level in creative projects. Recalling a tense bidding war for the 2017 hit film I, Tonya about Olympic figure skater Tonya Harding, he says lead actress Margot Robbie, also a producer, was immersed in the all-night negotiations: “Around 5 a.m., she just couldn’t stay up any longer but wouldn’t leave and miss anything. So she curled up and slept under the glass coffee table that we used for working through deal spreadsheets so she’d never be able to say she didn’t see the thing through.”

A key figure in bringing four films to market and securing their distribution at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, Klubeck acknowledges the movie industry’s challenges — including shortening attention spans, TikTok, the fear of creative risk, fragmented audiences, diminishing marketing innovation, and vanishing ancillary revenue sources.

“But there’s so much success in both film and television year in and year out because brilliant creators and performers continually emerge, and the demand for compelling shows and films continues to grow,” Klubeck says. “Those realities, together with so much available capital and innovation within marketing and distribution, ensure that at least the part of the business I operate in will be just fine.”

Growing up in newly independent Ukraine while her father was a journalist, freedom of expression became an omnipresent issue for Tetiana Poudel LL.M. ’16. As a teen she advocated for democracy and transparent governance during the 2004 Orange Revolution — a mass protest movement sparked by election fraud.

“That became a defining moment for shaping my belief in free speech and civic discourse,” she says.

Following her LL.M. year at UC Berkeley Law, Poudel launched a fast-rising Silicon Valley career at Meta and then Spotify. But when Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, her focus changed.

Granted a few weeks off by Spotify, Poudel flew to Poland to be with her mother and sister, who temporarily fled Ukraine early in the war. She then went to Ukraine — where her father had joined the army on the invasion’s first day.

“His decision was incredibly brave and something I deeply admire,” she says, noting his subsequent distinguished service awards from President Volodymyr Zelensky and General Valerii Zaluzhny.

He eventually became deputy commander, and with his unit lacking basic protective gear and supplies Poudel raised $13,000 for boots and tactical vests. She also helped deliver medications over the border after many Ukrainian pharmacies were destroyed.

In September 2022, Poudel transferred to Spotify’s London office to be closer to family and spend as much time as possible in Ukraine. She joined the advisory board of Slava Ventures, a Silicon Valley-based fund focused on investing in Ukrainian startups, supporting their due diligence process and evaluating potential investment opportunities. Poudel also joined initiatives that help support defense tech innovation from Ukraine or other allies.

“The most rewarding part of this work has been contributing to something bigger than myself,” she says.

Last fall, Poudel joined the social media entertainment giant TikTok as legal counsel. True to form, she leaned right into the risks involved.

“I won’t lie: It felt like a bold move at the time, given the looming U.S. ban and the broader geopolitical scrutiny the company was under,” she says. “But a mentor once told me, ‘You’ll inevitably be part of an organization facing a major legal challenge no matter what happens — and you’ll learn a lot from that experience.’”

From Meta to Spotify to TikTok, Poudel has worked on challenging issues such as advising on aligning with global regulations for various product launches, developing product compliance strategies, and handling intellectual property infringement claims. She credits her LL.M. year at Berkeley for making possible a corporate law job at Wilson Sonsini that sparked her professional ascent.

“Berkeley expanded my worldview,” she says. “It inspired me to view my career like a startup — creative, agile, and growth-focused.” — Andrew Cohen

As entertainment outlets expand at warp speed, so do rewarding legal opportunities. Working in Athens, Greece, as a legal manager at Kaizen Gaming, a global game-tech company operating in over 20 countries, Eleni Anagnostopoulou LL.M. ’19 shapes its intellectual property strategy across diverse markets.

“Entertainment law is becoming increasingly global, mirroring the industry’s own transformation,” she says. “The explosion of digital media, social media, and streaming platforms has erased many traditional borders that once defined content production and distribution. Today, a show developed in Seoul can become a global hit overnight, and legal teams must be ready to navigate a complex web of international IP laws, cross-border agreements, and cultural nuances.”

Anagnostopoulou says books, plays, TV series, video games, and pretty much anything creative “would completely bewitch me” as a child. When she decided to study law, “there was absolutely no question in my mind I had to specialize in an area that would let me be part of this creative universe.”

She now drafts and negotiates high-profile commercial agreements and handles sponsorships, content production, advertising, and influencer partnerships, ensuring compliance while aligning legal protection with Kaizen’s business goals. Anagnostopoulou says that every day brings a new platform, content delivery mode, or production format — each pushing the boundaries of long-established legal definitions for originality, authorship, and ownership.

“NFTs, deepfakes, or the viral trend of AI-generated Studio Ghibli-style images, these are more than novelties; they’re groundbreaking shifts that challenge the very foundations of IP doctrines,” she says. “For legal advisers in this space, staying current isn’t enough. You must stay curious, agile, and imaginative. You must approach each innovation with the mindset of a creator and consumer first to grasp these new concepts, and as a lawyer second to interpret how they fit into an already complex IP law matrix.”

Harold Brown ’76 faced his own complex matrix after college. He wanted to be a poet, but says when he applied for both masters of fine arts and law school programs, “my LSATs were better than my portfolio.”

His creative bent hardly vanished — Brown wrote his first law school exam in iambic pentameter. “I was really good at iambic pentameter and really bad at Civil Procedure,” he says. “I was hoping to distract the professor with irrelevant proficiency.”

Nevertheless, Brown acclimated quickly to the family profession at Gang, Tyre, Ramer & Brown, working with his mother — who spent 50 years there and represented Marilyn Monroe and Groucho Marx — and discussing legal concepts with his father, a USC law professor.

Brown joined Gilbert-Lurie and Edelman this year on The Hollywood Reporter Legal Legends Honor Roll (which he has been named to several times) and his enviable client list includes actor Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, author Stephen King, and famed directors Michael Mann, George Miller, Steven Spielberg, and Robert Zemeckis.

Brown’s secrets to sustaining client loyalty and avoiding burnout in such a chaotic industry?

“Stop when you hit a wall,” he says. “Save some time for yourself and your family. Listen closely to clients. Don’t be afraid to give hard advice in a soft way, and know how to do that for every client. Don’t talk down to clients or use fancy words. Don’t fall in love with your own advice — clients don’t have to follow it. Finally, have some fun. It’s a dreary marathon if you aren’t enjoying it and are just in it for the money.”

Named the Beverly Hills Bar Association 2017 Entertainment Lawyer of the Year, Brown enjoyed an irreverent award ceremony. Colleagues and clients playfully chided him during an opening video narrated by client and former CBS “The Late Late Show” host Craig Ferguson.

In the movie Journey 2: The Mysterious Island, there’s a “pec pop” scene where Johnson alternates flexing each of his pectoral muscles, bouncing berries off them thrown by another character. When the movie came out, by way of congratulations, Brown sent Johnson a video reenacting the scene while an assistant tossed berries at him.

“To see Harold Brown in his office with his shirt off showing his chest for the pec pop, I mean there’s dreams come true, there’s heaven, and there’s … oh, yeah, a nightmare, that’s what that was,” Johnson said in the video. Toward the end as sentiments got more genuine, he added, “It’s been such a pleasure to work with you and such an honor.”

Spielberg — who jokingly said Brown inspired the character of a greedy lawyer viciously devoured by a dinosaur in his movie The Lost World: Jurassic Park — later called Brown “a great, great inspiration … I just owe you everything.”

Bruce Gellman ’91 draws inspiration from his clients, many of them writers and showrunners, hailing their ability to rethink release strategies, embrace new distribution platforms, and experiment with production models.

The managing partner at Hansen, Jacobson, Gellman has worked out deals for “This Is Us” creator Dan Fogelman, whose movie screenplays include Bolt, Cars, Tangled, and Crazy, Stupid Love, Deborah Cahn (“The Diplomat”), Jennie Snyder Urman (“Matlock,” “Jane the Virgin”), and Writers Guild of America West President Meredith Stiehm (“Cold Case”).

“Each negotiation is tailored to who the parties are and their respective interests and goals,” says Gellman, a recurring member on The Hollywood Reporter Top 100 Power Lawyers list. “Understanding bargaining position and leverage is also key. The one consistent thing is trying to come across as reasonable and fair in the negotiation.”

Gellman says UC Berkeley Law developed the tools he uses daily: careful analysis, clear communication, and finding common ground among competing interests. He calls the school’s entertainment law chops a function of its commitment to thrive in that space and admitting smart, driven students.

“This industry is relatively small,” Gellman says. “Having so many successful alumni in the field, along with Berkeley’s reputation as one of the country’s top law schools, helps maintain its position as a preeminent school for entertainment law.”

Captivated by the power of storytelling, 3Ls Maria Harrast and Nico Brown are eagerly guiding the next chapter of the Berkeley Journal of Entertainment & Sports Law.

This school year, the journal’s co-editors-in-chief will explore the impact of generative AI on content creation, the evolving landscape of copyright and licensing in the digital age, and how the creator economy’s rapid growth affects business models and legal issues around intellectual property, contracts, and platform policies.

“We also plan to cover the rise of deepfakes and their impact on publicity rights and the shift of sports content from traditional broadcasting to streaming platforms,” says Harrast, who did a field placement with the Writers Guild of America last spring and was a creative acquisitions assistant at Disney before law school.

A Golden State Warriors intern in summer 2024, Brown drafted and reviewed sponsorship, professional service, trademark use, and non-disclosure agreements as well as general release waivers, among other tasks.

He says the law school’s only online journal reflects Berkeley’s culture of innovation and efficiency.

“By publishing electronically, we’re able to provide convenient access to our readers while cutting down on unnecessary financial and environmental costs associated with physical printing and distribution,” Brown explains. “Because we frequently publish articles concerning media and art, it also allows for the inclusion of mixed media in our publications that readers wouldn’t otherwise be able to engage with.”

Given how vital relationship-building is in the field, Harrast and Brown are also bolstering connections between UC Berkeley Law alumni and current students.

“Berkeley has a powerful and far-reaching presence throughout the industry,” Harrast says. “Our alumni network includes attorneys at boutique talent firms, BigLaw entertainment practices, and studios, streamers, and sports teams. And as the entertainment and tech industries continue to converge, Berkeley’s proximity to Silicon Valley adds an exciting dimension.”

At the Writers Guild of America, which helps writers receive what they’re owed from studios and production companies, Harrast saw labor and guild issues intersect with the larger entertainment ecosystem while working on arbitration preparation, legal research, and drafting.

“What always drew me to entertainment law is the chance to support the creative process and play a role — even if it’s behind the scenes — in helping bring stories to life and contribute to an industry that has had such a profound impact on me,” she says.

Brown calls his time with the journal, the first law school organization he joined, continually gratifying. He relishes how it covers traditional fields such as art, literature, and physical sports along with more modern areas such as video games, film and television, and e-sports.

“The journal publishes first-rate articles while also fostering a dynamic and inclusive environment filled with enriching events for its members,” Brown says. “It has been such a rewarding experience for me because of the incredibly hard work prior boards have put into fostering that type of environment.” — Andrew Cohen

Fellow Top 100 Power Lawyers regular Darren Trattner ’94, a named partner at Jackoway et al and go-to dealmaker for A-list clients like Giancarlo Esposito and Sigourney Weaver, closed the agreement for Scott Cooper to write, produce, and direct the highly anticipated Bruce Springsteen biopic Deliver Me From Nowhere, set for release Oct. 25.

He also negotiated pacts for Esposito to play Sidewinder in Marvel’s Captain America: Brave New World and Brian Tyree Henry to co-star in Warner Bros.’ thriller Panic Carefully, and coordinated a comprehensive deal with Amazon for writer Jason Hall (American Sniper). The fuel that keeps him going? “The indomitable creative spirit of artists.”

Trattner credits UC Berkeley Law for teaching him how to challenge the status quo, calling his time there “such a formative period in my life because the professors and students created such a stimulating and rich intelligential environment.”

He sees artificial intelligence as entertainment’s next big challenge, and says lawyers stand to play key roles in creating helpful guardrails and processes — a path he thinks will require “diligence, passion, and an insatiable desire to learn and become a better advocate.”

Traits UC Berkeley Law lawyers regularly display while making a huge impact on the entertainment world.

“We’re trained to look beyond the obvious, to connect dots across disciplines and borders, and to bring light — creative, informed, nuanced light — to complex challenges,” Anagnostopoulou says. “Fiat Lux isn’t just a motto, it’s a mindset. In a global entertainment market that thrives on innovation and cross-cultural collaboration, that mindset is exactly what helps Berkeley lawyers stand out.”