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A Dream
Field:
Intellectual
Property & New Media
Jeff Storey '01
Cardozo
attracts many students who come to the law from the arts, the computer
field, and other creative backgrounds, and graduates many more who seek
to enter the booming fields of entertainment, new media, communications,
and intellectual property law. At Cardozo, these students benefit from
what Prof. Marci Hamilton, director of the Intellectual Property Program,
calls "one of the richest intellectual property curricula in the country,"
which is supplemented by a range of extracurricular activities that includes
a top journal in the field, the premier entertainment and communications
law moot court competition, externships, provocative symposia and lectures,
and the recently established LL.M. program in intellectual property law
that can be completed along with the J.D. in three and a half years.
Today nearly 1,000 Cardozo grads, from an alumni body of 6,500, work
for law firms specializing in intellectual property and entertainment law,
for new media ventures, and for companies as diverse as BMG Entertainment,
McGraw-Hill, the Game Show Network, Twentieth-Century Fox, Major League
Baseball Enterprises, PolyGram, ESPN, BBC Worldwide, RCA, Hearst, and something
called Itsy-Bitsy Entertainment.
The Internet Entrepreneur
Mark S. Lieberman '84
Mark S. Lieberman recently built a treehouse for his two children. After
they had gone inside, he spent some time admiring his handiwork. "I enjoy
building things," he says. The lawyer-turned-entrepreneur is having a ball
building Softcom, Inc., a New York applications service provider whose
aim is to revolutionize the way video is used on the Worldwide Web. "There
is no question that in only a few years, the giant video will be an interactive
home center where people will watch television, shop, pay bills, get e-mail,
do research, and many other daily activities," said Lieberman.
Lieberman, who joined the six-year-old company
as chairman in 1999 and became chief executive officer early this year,
sees Softcom as another milestone in the convergence of technology, communications,
and media that he has sought to advance as an executive, venture capitalist,
and government official. The company's "streaming media" technology allows
broadcasters and other content providers to combine video, chat, streaming
text, and real-time data feeds in an interactive screen that integrates
E-commerce, advertising, and archives. For example, Softcom supported
enhanced Oscar coverage for E! Online that allowed viewers to chat with
an E! gossip columnist, view video clips of nominated films, and play a
Golden Gamble game by wagering points to pick the winner. And it gave viewers
of the Home Shopping Channel the ability to order Joe Montana memorabilia
and chat simultaneously with the quarterback after his election to the
Pro Football Hall of Fame.
The Cardozo graduate, whose father is a patent
attorney, enrolled in law school after earning a mechanical engineering
degree magna cum laude from Tufts University. He was a member of Cardozo's
first class of Alexander Fellows. He clerked for a Federal Appeals Court
judge and practiced intellectual property law. In 1989, he served in the
Bush administration at the Commerce Department, where he led the United
States in negotiations with Japan
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and the European Community on high-technology
research programs, "before anybody even thought about the Internet." After
a two-year stint in government, he moved to the private sector and was
involved in seven start-ups. For two years, he was executive vice president
of the entertainment, communications, and media division of Cahners Business
Information, a Reed Elsevier company, where he directed a stable of publications
that included Variety and Broadcasting and Cable.
Lieberman says that his legal training has
helped him to negotiate his own contracts at cash-strapped start-up ventures.
It also comes in handy when he is managing other lawyers. Most important,
however, the experience gave him a sense of discipline and the training
to move quickly when that was required. He says that Cardozo, with its
emphasis on intellectual property and ethical issues, is perfectly positioned
to take advantage of the "wonderful opportunities" offered by New York's
"Silicon Alley."
Lawyers should take note, however, that working
with the Internet is very different from the traditional corporate environment.
Softcom recently walked away from a deal it wanted after the other side's
attorneys raised too many time-consuming negotiating ploys. "Speed absolutely
is of the essence," said Lieberman.
Superman's Lawyer
Lillian Laserson '83
Lillian Laserson's big moment as an actress came when, playing a floozie
named Darlene, she had a date with Potsie on Happy Days. But after eight
years of struggling in a business with an unemployment rate that exceeded
90 percent, she decided that she "wanted to make a living." Law school
beckoned for this Perry Mason fan.
After acting, "law school was a piece of cake,"
Laserson says. She liked the fact that the rules were clear. "You do the
work, you make the grades, and you get a job." She loved Cardozo, where
she joined the criminal law clinic and was able to try a case. "It was
like producing, directing, and starring in your own production," she says.
Laserson worked for a large firm for several
years, then moved to a smaller boutique operation that specialized in intellectual
property law. She worked for Jim Henson Productions before joining DC Comics
and Mad magazine in 1990 as the company's first in-house counsel. Today,
she is vice president and general counsel, working in offices where the
reception area is modeled after the rooftops of Gotham City - complete with
bat signal. She performs a variety of functions including contract negotiation,
acquisitions, pre-publication review, supervision of litigation, licensing
for television and film, and monitoring "very tricky" intellectual property
questions.
DC Comics has grown substantially since Laserson
joined the company. Employment has more than doubled, and edgier, adult-oriented
comic book lines have been added to Superman, Batman, and other traditional
fare. The company now publishes a variety of different genres including
mystery, humor, and nonfiction. Nonfiction works in particular present
new and challenging legal issues in the areas of libel and the rights of
privacy and publicity. The Internet has also created new opportunities
as well as legal issues. DC Comics has even become a defense contractor,
deploying Superman and other characters to teach children in Kosovo, Bosnia,
and elsewhere about the danger of land mines.
For her relationships with the people who
write and illustrate the company's products, Laserson says "it is very
helpful that I have a creative background" because other employees tend
to look at lawyers as "suits." Her usual response when approached by editors,
writers, and artists with a creative but legally troubling idea is to say,
"Let's figure out how we can say this."
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nbsp; Laserson says that she loved reading comic
books and Mad when she was growing up in Scarsdale. She does not read everything
the company produces now - editors know when to contact her about a potential
problem. Nevertheless, she is convinced her job is unique because "let's
face it, I represent men in tights."
The Art Director
Lawrence C. Barth '84
Lawrence C. Barth is a busy litigation partner
for the Los Angeles office of Munger, Tolles & Olson who fights "to
remain something of a generalist." He has represented plaintiffs and defendants
in areas as diverse as trade secret misappropriation, employment discrimination,
broker's malpractice, complex business disputes, and environmental law.
His firm does not represent Hollywood talent, but it is often hired by
major entertainment firms like Universal and Warner Bros. Barth has also
written and filed briefs for artists' groups in censorship cases that have
gone all the way to the United States Supreme Court.
Barth represents some "very significant artists
and photographers," publishers, and galleries. He counsels artists on the
legal issues they must grapple with in their day-to-day work such as trademark
and copyright infringement, moral rights and privacy/publicity rights,
and First Amendment rights.
"Lawyers are by nature conservative creatures,"
he says. "They try to avoid risk. It's easy to tell a client you cannot
do that." Barth's clients look to him for creative ways to achieve their
visions without taking legal missteps. He is uncomfortable vetting artists'
and writers' work for obscenity. The First Amendment did not give lawyers
the job of determining content, he says. But a lawyer can make his or her
clients savvy about legal issues. Barth's artist clients trust him because
"they know I am interested in what they do."
That interest is long-standing. In fact, Barth
himself has a professional background in the arts. He attended Cooper Union
in New York, but left without getting a degree to work as a magazine art
director for five years. Then he decided to become a lawyer, and "Cardozo
took a chance on me. I had a wonderful time in law school," said Barth.
He worked as articles editor of the Cardozo Law Review, and after graduation
clerked for Judge Irving R. Kaufman of the United States Court of Appeals
for the Second Circuit. Barth received a job offer from a New York firm,
but Prof. Monroe E. Price acted as a matchmaker with Munger, Tolles &
Olson.
Barth continues to exercise his skill in visual
communication. He works with colleagues to develop non-traditional ways
of presenting information to jurors and lectures frequently on this issue.
Trial lawyers often are not good at reducing stories to icons or images.
Consultants claim to fill the gap, but Barth says much of their work is
"linear and verbally based." Barth seeks to use "things that are truly
visual. I'm sort of the art director of the firm."
Producing the Most Creative Work
Possible
Muriel Alix Caplan '79
Muriel Alix Caplan '79 did not start out to become an entertainment lawyer.
Instead, she was attracted to the law by the fact that it was becoming
"a more open avenue for women." She was a member of Cardozo's first class,
although "it did not seem like a new law school," she says, recalling stimulating
classes and, in particular, Constitutional Law taught by Telford Taylor.
Upon graduation she took a job in Washington, DC with the Commodity Futures
Trading Corp.
After nearly three years as a government regulator,
Caplan decided to pursue a legal career that was more in tune with her
personal interests in books and the arts. Switching spe
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cialities "was not
something you can do overnight." Just as it is hard to be all things to
all people, "it is hard for a lawyer to be all things to all clients."
Caplan returned to New York and began to do freelance legal work for theater
and movie producers. During this time she earned a certificate in book
and magazine publishing from New York University.
All of this spadework paid off when Caplan
was hired by the tradebook publisher Henry Holt and Co. in the legal department.
Several years later she was promoted to director of legal affairs. Along
with other corporate legal work, she negotiated and drafted licenses and
contracts; vetted manuscripts for issues of defamation, privacy, and copyright;
and supervised litigation. Walt Disney Co. hired her as a senior counsel
in April 1997. Caplan, who is based in New York, works in the corporate
law department and in addition to other duties, is the primary lawyer for
the Disney-owned Hyperion, a general interest publisher of, among other
genres, mysteries, novels, and nonfiction works; as well as Disney Children's
Book Group and Disney Licensed Publishing in North America.
Caplan's work at Disney has much greater scope
than it did at Holt. At Disney, she works with a larger group of clients,
and the job is more high-pressured. She frequently works with other Disney
attorneys to craft deals that translate characters into movies and television
presentations. Moreover, Disney has a large "portfolio" of intellectual
property: Mickey, Donald, and the rest and insists that its licensees portray
this property in the "right way."
Caplan says that lawyers who work with creative
people must be "open to the process." They must show empathy for the needs
of authors, illustrators, and other talent involved. Creative people respond
better to legal counsel "if they understand that we've read the work carefully
and acted with sensitivity." Caplan strives to get across the point of
view that "we basically have a common interest to avoid legal problems
and to produce the most creative work possible."
The Law of Romance
Lisa M. Dawson '99
You know the type. "The hero is tall, dark, and handsome with issues of
trust, fear, or some other flaw, but he can't be dishonest. The heroine
is beautiful, smart, and successful with issues of trust or fear but she
can't be a man-hater." Lisa M. Dawson is thrilled that she is seeing these
characters more and more frequently on the covers of books read by fellow
passengers on the train from her Queens residence to her midtown office
at BET Books.
The quoted descriptions are from Black Entertainment
Television's Web site and intended for potential authors in BET's Arabesque
line of romance novels, which are aimed at an educated, middle class African-American
audience. The line was launched by Kensington Publishing Corp. in 1994
and purchased by BET Holdings in 1998. Four paperback titles are published
each month in addition to four holiday books, four bride books, and one
hardcover. Several of the books have been made into movies shown on the
BET cable network.
Dawson, the line's contract manager, says
that the books - which have titles like Incognito, A Private Affair, and
Intimate Behavior - are in demand, a fact confirmed by her informal subway
survey. She turns memos from editors into contracts paying royalties and
advances to more than 50 African-American authors. In her talks with authors
and agents, "I try not to get too adversarial," she says. Getting the job
was "a combination of being prepared and lucky." Cardozo provided the preparation.
Dawson, who has undergraduate degrees in business
and biochemistry, originally wanted to be a doctor. She was attracted to
the law because of its problem-
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solving nature - "like the sciences" - and its
verbal character. While in school she worked for ABC-TV and an intellectual
property firm, participated in the entertainment law component of the Summer
Institute, and was on the staff of the Cardozo Arts & Entertainment
Law Journal. Courses like Negotiation in the Music Industry were extremely
helpful. She is glad that she chose Cardozo because the breadth of her
entertainment and intellectual property law training was "significantly
better than that reported by friends at other law schools."
The Musician
Paul F. Hansen '97
To earn money while a student at Cardozo, Paul F. Hansen worked as an usher
at the Metropolitan Opera. Now a full-time lawyer, he still spends several
nights a week at the opera house. After all, he has been a fan since he
heard Puccini's Turandot for the first time when he was 13. In fact, his
bosses also encourage him to attend. They want their associate counsel
to be intimately familiar with the Met's product. Hansen describes his
hiring for the Metropolitan Opera's two-person in-house legal department
as "serendipitous." When he enrolled in law school, the 36-year-old former
musician had thought "that was it, there was no more music in my future."
A concert pianist from the age of seven and
then a composer, Hansen earned a master's degree from Mannes College of
Music before deciding that his talent had "plateaued" and that music would
not provide "the sustenance that I thought I needed." Law seemed a good
alternative career choice for someone who also studied the social sciences
as an undergraduate. As a teenager, he subscribed to the Congressional
Record, poring over legislative debates when he wasn't practicing Chopin's
études and Polonaises.
Hansen was attracted to Cardozo by its reputation
for entertainment law and generous scholarships. He was impressed by the
"deceptively simple and direct" Socratic method that Prof. David Rudenstine
deployed in his constitutional law course and by Prof. Paul Shupack's penetrating
exegesis of contract law. But he also ventured beyond the classroom for
internships at Angel Records, Siemens Corporation, NASDAQ, and the United
Nations.
His stint as an usher helped him get the attention
of Henry Lauterstein, who had represented the Met for 40 years, first as
a private lawyer and then as in-house counsel. "The Met has a way of rewarding
people who work their way up through the ranks," says Hansen, pointing
out that the current director started as a carpenter. Hansen wrote Lauterstein,
who gave the aspiring lawyer research assignments and told him to come
back when he passed the bar examination. After Lauterstein retired, Hansen
worked as the Opera Association's acting general counsel for nearly seven
months in 1999. "It was very exhilarating and very challenging," he says.
"You have to be quick on your feet."
Hansen deals with a variety of legal issues,
ranging from trademark protection to corporate sponsorships. The diplomatic
skills he picked up during his father's State Department postings and his
United Nations internship have helped him deal with the immigration problems
and other hassles faced by international artists - a job that takes up about
one-third of his time. Hansen also enjoys drafting contracts. "It requires
creativity to bridge differences that can be very severe," he says. He
even is able to occasionally use a rehearsal room to polish his own musical
compositions.
All in all, working for the Met has been very
rewarding, pointing out that people who work for the Opera Association
have a saying: "Nobody ever leaves the Met because there is no better place
to go."
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