Will there be decent employment prospects for an entertainment lawyer, and is this area interesting?
I live in Los Angeles, and I’m considering going to law school. I want to go to UCLA or USC, and both have recently incorporated an entertainment law section into their law schools. This seems like it would be a pretty interesting area of law to go into, even though a lot of it would deal with contracts. Despite this, would it be easier to get a job in this particular section of law? I’ve never heard about many entertainment lawyers, since most go into corporate, civil lit, labor, criminal, or tax law. So would it be less competitive? And how much could you probably make starting out in Los Angeles to a medium or large firm? Thanks for any help!
Entertainment law sounds a lot more interesting than it actually is, it’s like practicing any other type of law. Some attorneys do contracts (called transactional or corporate law), some litigate. There are both types of entertainment attorneys. Generally, if you work in biglaw you work for corporations, like studios, and if you work at smaller firms, you work for the talent. Some attorneys practice IP law, intellectual property, which is a whole different ballgame, but some consider it entertainment law. Some attorneys work in-house for studios, shorter hours than law firms, but the pay is low.
Entertainment law is a very competitive field, because attorneys want to get into it, thinking it will be glamorous. It’s not. Talent often doesn’t pay, even when you win their case, apparently you should be honored just to work for them. (OK, not all, but it is a big problem!) Working for the studios is just like working for any other big corporation. Often attorneys will not only do entertainment law, but other types of law as well.
Right now first year attorneys at biglaw make $160,000 plus bonus, although because of the economy they may start lower soon, maybe $140,000 and bonuses may be on hold for a year or so. At a small or medium firm in LA a first year attorney might make $80,000 – $100,000, or even less. Biglaw has been mostly lockstep compensation, although that may change for a few years. Generally, a 7th year at biglaw would make around $240,000 plus bonus, maybe $40,000+ for those with good billing hours (over 2100).
If you want to be considered for a biglaw job out of school, you basically must go to a top tier law school. Being an attorney is generally a 12 hour a day job, if you want any success or if you work at biglaw. Except for the worst years, one can expect to bill at least 2000 hours, and even right now I know plenty of attorneys who are on track for that or more. While hours may be shorter at smaller firms, the compensation will be much less. And you’ll probably have law school debt to pay….
You should see about getting an intern job at a firm or at least spending some time at a firm to see if it’s the direction you want to go in. It’s a lot of work, sometimes painfully boring (especially at first, boxes and boxes of documents to go through every day), but some love it.
Good luck!
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(May 2009)- Verrill Dana’s Health Technology Group is pleased to support The Daniel Hanley Center for Health Leadership’s 2009-2010 Hanley Fellows Class.
The Hanley Fellows Program is named in honor of the late Dan Hanley, M.D. (1916-2001), an internationally-known physician leader who served as physician to the U.S. Olympic Team, college doctor at Bowdoin College, and executive director of the Maine Medical Association. The Daniel Hanley Center for Health Leadership was established in 2002 and is governed by a distinguished group of health care leaders from throughout Maine and across the nation.
The Hanley Fellows program targets a small, select group of highly experienced leaders who are poised to lead substantive change at the health and health care systems level. Like other Hanley Center programs, the Fellows program focuses on developing traits that characterized Dr. Dan Hanley’s own leadership: inclusion, collaboration, compassion, courage, hard work, innovation and kindness.
These values are exemplified by each member of the Hanley Fellows Class of 2009-2010, and Verrill Dana congratulates them:
Gail Dana-Sacco, PhD is the director of the Wabanaki Center at the University of Maine.
Dan McCormack is the CEO of InterMed, a multi-specialty physician practice with several locations in Southern Maine.
Scott Mills, MD is the Vice President of Medical Affaris at Mid-Coast Hospital in Brunswick, ME and a practicing physician with Mid-Coast Cardiology.
Dan Mingle, MD is a partner with Maine MSO, LLC. Maine MSO is a medical service organization established in 2008 to provide an array of information technology services to health care practices and health systems.
Elizabeth Neptune, a member of the Passamoquodday Tribe in Maine, is a management consultant to the Indian Health Service (IHS).
Verrill Dana shares those principles that drive The Center’s mission, and Verrill Dana is proud to support this program and its fellows.
About Verrill Dana:
Verrill Dana, LLP is one of the leading law firms in New England, widely known for delivering high quality legal services in a thoughtful and responsive manner that regularly exceeds our clients’ expectations.
Tracing its roots to 1862, the firm has grown to become one of Maine’s largest law firms. In recent years the firm has grown regionally, and beyond, to become the only Maine firm with offices in Boston, Augusta, Hartford and Washington D.C.. Today, Verrill Dana is a dynamic firm that provides sophisticated legal representation to businesses and individuals in a wide variety of areas. These include all of the traditional areas of legal services, such as litigation, real estate, business law, labor and employment law, and estate planning; and a number of specialized practice areas, such as health care and health technology, immigration and global migration, employee benefits and executive compensation, intellectual property, energy, timberlands, and environmental law, among others.
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From the Background to the Fore–The Development of Gender Equality in Taiwan ＃5
I recently attended a lecture hosted by The Boston Federalist Society entitled: Health Care Reform: Is the Massachusetts Model a Cure-All for the Country? Ironically, the lecture was presented in the Kennedy Room of the Omni Parker House Hotel. There was plenty the speakers disagreed about, but it was what they agreed upon that surprised me most. According to expert data available, because it’s subsidized by the federal government, the Massachusetts model has proven to be mostly affordable for our state. The plan has succeeded in extending some form of coverage to 97.3% of residents, giving us the lowest rate of uninsured in the country. The issue most hotly contested was the Constitutionality of forcing people over the age of 18 to buy health insurance or pay a fine. The Commerce Clause was also debated at some length.
Timothy Murphy, of Beacon Health Strategies, gave a presentation that made this Tea Party member proud. He said that the state law, despite allowing for greater transparency of health care costs, has done nothing to lower rates. Health care rates across the state continue to increase about 10% yearly. Of the state plan he said, “We got the individual mandate wrong.” He believes the plan has lead to the government being in the “bullying and price control business.” As a business owner, Murphy believes in a consumer driven market rather than having employers negotiate directly with insurance companies. Employers dislike dealing with insurance, and find it a distraction from their main function.
Nancy Turnbull of Harvard School of Public Health disagrees. She said, “People can’t pick their own coverage. They can’t decide they don’t want substance abuse or mental health coverage today and then change their minds tomorrow.” Oh really? Why not? People generally have to wait until open enrollment to make changes to their plans, but why can’t they change their minds? Regarding men wishing to decline maternity coverage, she actually accused them of attempting to deny their roll in the fathering process. You can’t make this stuff up. Turnbull believes that people want healthcare choices simpler “because they don’t understand it.” I don’t know about you, but I’m growing tired of being told I’m not smart enough to make my own decisions. Turnbull also blamed “monopolies in the state that control the market.” In my humble opinion, that’s the best argument for making health insurance more competitive. Why can’t we buy insurance across state lines? Anyone?
The audience in the Kennedy Room was predominantly made up of lawyers and health care professionals. For a topic so controversial, I’d say the listeners were quite reserved. When Tim Murphy spoke, I had to sit on my hands lest they spontaneously clap together. At times I had to remind myself that this was not a Tea Party Rally. Murphy spoke passionately about the overreach of the federal health care bill. He stated it would “follow the same path as Massachusetts-but on steroids.” The state bill is barely 70 pages, while the colossal federal bill towers at almost 2,700. Nancy Turnbull, who supports more government regulation, appeared to have no problem with that. She proceeded to calculate out loud, “70 pages multiplied by 50 states…” That comment was followed by some actual booing from the crowd. By her calculations, we are saving about 800 pages. Nancy, let’s not give Congress any ideas.
Turnbull quoted the tired liberal mantra about “other countries having lower costs and better quality health care.” Will someone please tell me where these health care utopias are? It’s almost impossible to compare the quality of health care among countries that can’t even agree on the criteria for collecting data. For instance, when comparing infant mortality rates, some countries don’t count the deaths unless the infants are at least 24 hours old. Therefore if another country counts infant deaths from the time of birth, that country is perceived as having a higher mortality rate (i.e., the United States). Furthermore, if I develop cancer, I have a 20% higher chance of survival then if I lived in England or Canada. Call me crazy, but I think I’m ok with paying more for those odds.
Murphy used an excellent illustration of the free market regulating itself when he spoke of his own experience with Lasik eye surgery. Since Lasik is not covered by insurance, when he decided to have the procedure he researched doctors with the most experience. By educating himself with the pertinent facts he was able to make an informed decision. He stated he was amazed at how the price has dropped since the surgery had first become popular. Murphy states this was “the best example of a procedure in which the quality went up and the price went down.” Wow! Capitalism does work!
There was much discussion about the Constitutionality of the federal government getting into the health care business. The focus was the much contested Commerce Clause which gives government the authority to regulate interstate commerce. In United States v. Lopez (1995), the Supreme Court ruled that the Commerce Clause may only be used by Congress to regulate human activity that is truly commercial and has not been traditionally regulated by the states. In a September 2009 WSJ article, Andrew Napolitano said the following:
“Applying these principles to President Barack Obama’s health care proposal it’s clear that his plan is unconstitutional at its core. The practice of medicine consists of the delivery of intimate services to the human body. In almost all instances, the delivery of medical services occurs in one place and does not move across state lines. One goes to a physician not to engage in a commercial activity, as the Framers of the Constitution understood, but to improve one’s health. And the practice of medicine, much like public school safety, has been regulated by the states for the past century.”
Presenter David Rivkin, Esq. from Washington, D.C. seemed to agree with the massive overreach of the federal government. According to Rivkin, “every decision you make has an economic footprint–what you eat, if you exercise and even if you procreate.” Does that mean the government should control all behavior? In a word, “no.”
A subject that was conspicuously absent from the debate was TORT reform. I guess with all those lawyers in the room no one wanted to bring it up. The lecture ended with a presentation by Wendy Mariner from Boston University School of Public Health. She stated it was not a problem with the Constitution if the federal bill received its funding from “a tax instead of a mandate” (cue the giant sucking sound). She said, “God created insurance to spread the cost.” I guess my Bible is out of date.
Christine has a BA in Communications from Truman State University. Before becoming a psychiatric nurse she worked as a zookeeper for 13 years. While in the animal field she traveled extensively around the country presenting educational bird shows. She became passionate about politics over the past several years and is concerned about the ever increasing size and scope of government. Christine is currently serving on the steering committee for the Greater Boston Tea Party.
MA Employment Law – How To Let Your Workers Go
