Paging Whart

Yo, Willie. Nothing like a few law school exams to get your priorities straight. Well, here's my take: first, respecting so-called entertainment law, it really means a variety of things, from solo practitioners who shop the wares of performer clients, looking for a deal and taking a piece of the action -really functioning more like agents-- to big firm institutional practices that do the big transactions involving mergers, aquisitions and sales of entertainment conglomerates. In between, you've got everything from tax lawyers who specialize in dead entertainer estates to litigators who handle contract disputes in the movie or music industry. So, the label doesn't tell you a whole lot.
There are firms which tend to attract either performers or media corporations as clients and offer a range of services, mostly on the east and west coast centers, NY and LA. There is some music biz in Nashville, and a small concentration of film work in NY, but mostly, its movies and relationed practices in LA (including labor law, media law, talent negotiations, etc.),music only seconarily; NY- music, other media, and corporate deals, along with tax, litigation, etc. Litigation can occur anywhere, but the firms tend to be concentrated in these two cities, with a smattering elsewhere.

I can go thru the roster of decent firms if you like; many tended traditionally to be boutiques, but that's not true anymore. The horsepower usually resides in the big firms, for obvious reasons. Money, power, lots of diverse expertise, and manpower to handle alot of big stuff at once.

The sports law practice is something that is even narrower, although some of the observations i made about entertainment law are true here too: it could be a guy who reps and negotiates "talent" (hell, i have a friend who specialized in representing TV weathermen for a long time), and/or the firms that represent the leagues, with banking, media, tax and a host of specialty practice areas in between. We have a well-known sports practice: look at the proskauer web site. If you want to talk to some people there to pick brains, i'll be happy to introduce you.