John J. Tormey III, Entertainment Lawyer

New York Entertainment Attorney John J. Tormey III, Esq. John J. Tormey III, PLLC: My name is John J. Tormey III. This is my blog. I am a New York lawyer, also admitted to practice in California and the District of Columbia. My focus is on entertainment, art, media, copyright, trademark, limited liability company law, and music A and R (Artist and Repertoire) matters. I formerly served as Counsel to The Walt Disney Company, and Senior Counsel and Senior Litigation Counsel to Miramax Films.

Tuesday, January 1, 2013

Employment And Severance Scenarios: Written By New York Entertainment Attorney And Employment Lawyer John J. Tormey III, Esq.

Law Office of John J. Tormey III, Esq. – Entertainment Lawyer

John J. Tormey III, PLLC

1636 Third Avenue, PMB 188

New York, NY 10128 USA

(212) 410-4142 (phone)

(212) 410-2380 (fax)
jtormey@optonline.net

brightline@att.net

https://www.tormey.org

Employment And Severance Scenarios: Written By New York Entertainment Attorney And Employment Lawyer John J. Tormey III, Esq.

This article is not intended to, and does not constitute, legal advice with respect to your particular situation and fact pattern. Do secure counsel promptly, if you see any legal issue looming on the horizon which may affect your career or your rights. What applies in one context, may not apply to the next one. Make sure that you seek individualized legal advice as to any important matter pertaining to your career or your rights generally.

In prior articles I have alluded to the fact that many people think being an entertainment lawyer is a romantic existence. Yet the brass-tacks principles of employment law and the harshness of employee severance and termination scenarios often overtake that romanticism. Being an entertainment lawyer entails a lot more than hanging-out with talent backstage or on the tour bus. In prior articles I have also alluded to the fact that artists often have “day jobs” providing their paying employment to subsidize their artistic ventures. As a New York entertainment attorney who grew up in a show business family in the midst of performers, I’m used to this. Most of these artists intend to abandon these day jobs, with or without an employment severance package, once they get signed to a development deal, record contract, or otherwise “make it”. But what happens in the meantime? What if an artist works for a company that intends to jettison him or her as an employee, rather than the other way around? What if the company counts on using an employment severance package as a hedge against risk of an after-occurring wrongful-termination lawsuit?

These past few years have comprised a particularly bad time in terms of employee and contractor lay-offs and firings. As a working entertainment lawyer in New York I have seen many artists and others downscale and change jobs in recent years. Many situations which used to prompt a severance package to materialize in the prior decade, do not do so any longer. The fact of the matter is, a large proportion of employees and other workers misplay the handling of their job exit, if and when it occurs in the employment law context. In the interests of employee and worker empowerment before the blue-ink dries on the release and settlement agreement or other severance documents, this article follows. Though written by me as a media and entertainment attorney working with entertainers, the same principles apply to employment work in other industries and sectors.

I suppose that the first rule of employee empowerment is fairly pedestrian-sounding, but vitally important. An employee must read and review every employment document pertaining to his or her job and career, carefully - including the following disclaimer. The employee should secure counsel promptly, if he or she sees any legal issue looming on the horizon which may affect the employee’s career or rights - including legal issues relating to employment and severance packages. As an entertainment lawyer friend and entertainment law professor of mine used to say, “every deal is different”. What applies in one employment context may not apply to the next one. The employee must make sure that he or she seeks individualized legal advice as to any important matter pertaining to the employee’s career or rights generally. It is not uncommon that a soon-to-be-terminated worker starts calling attorneys as soon as offered an employment severance package.

There are attorneys, entertainment attorneys and otherwise, who routinely handle “employee-side” legal matters. A number of attorneys may be able to do so affordably for even a modestly-compensated employee, in the context of a severance proposal or otherwise. An employee-side lawyer should be accustomed to representing people who have limited financial resources, and this is a particularly-familiar fact-pattern for an entertainment lawyer handling artist-side work. There are parallels. And, assuming that one is not a lawyer, one should no sooner handle one’s own legal work than handle one’s own dental or medical needs oneself. The severance and employee-exit scenario most often entails some analysis of employment legal issues governing the exit. Given the economic realities faced by those in the artistic world, all entertainment lawyers need to be familiar with these employment legal issues.

The employee should remember that most employers themselves have in-house or outside attorneys. Indeed, the employment, severance, settlement, release, and exit documents are most often drafted by these attorneys. They may be entertainment attorneys, employment attorneys, litigators, or generalists. However monikered, often an employee’s securing of his or her own counsel is the only way to equilibrate the proverbial scales of justice in a severance or other job-related scenario. Exploitative and even abusive treatment of employees is unfortunately rampant in the employment law context, including at the time of worker exit - particularly in highly-competitive cities like New York and Los Angeles, and in highly-competitive industries like entertainment and media as any entertainment attorney will tell you. The good works and lessons taught by historical pro-labor figures like Samuel Gompers should not go for naught. The employee should not look to the employer, or the vicissitudes of chance, to protect the employee and the employee’s own legal rights in the workplace or in the context of a severance or other exit from employment. Rather, the employee should empower himself or herself, and should not be inhibited in seeking out the advice and opinions of those professionals who handle employee-side legal work for a living.

On to the substance and detail.

The lead singer of a rock band about to step onto a live television set is furnished a “release” for signature five minutes before scheduled air time. The entertainment lawyer representing the singer might cry, “No!”. While this could sound like an entertainment attorney observation meant only for the golden days of the Ed Sullivan Show, the rule of not signing on-the-spot is true in the employment context and across all other subject-matter areas and sectors as well. Like the artist, the employee, too, should never sign any document, employment document, severance document, or otherwise, on-the-spot. The employee should not be bullied into signing on the spot, as a product of fear, or the purposeful manipulation of same by oppressive employers or ex-employers. There are very few situations in life where one truly must sign a document on-the-spot, and an employment-related signature is usually not one of them. One of the only valid such situations that I can recall from my own experience is when an attorney must sign a stipulation on-the-spot before a judge, as the only way to preserve the attorney’s client’s rights. This will not likely be a situation that one will ever have to encounter as an employee or terminated employee in an employment severance context or otherwise. Employers typically offer severance to terminated workers out of fear of being sued by them, meaning that the worker often has more leverage in the employment context than he or she initially thinks.

It is astounding, though, as to how many people make this mistake of “on-the-spot” signing, time and time again, in the entertainment law context, and in the employment severance context and in the workplace and business-world generally - even if these signatories know better. The employee should trust his or her own instincts. If it smells bad, it is bad. If anyone, be it a car salesman, a manager or talent agent you’ve never heard of before, or, yes, an employer offering an employment severance package while terminating your employee services, waves a document at you as panaceatic – you should be suspect. The entertainment attorney’s first instinct is that a document waved at you for on-the-spot signing is not worth to you the paper it is printed on. In the employment context, if the employer presents the employee with a severance document or other document and tries to pressure the employee to sign that document on-the-spot, the instinctual reaction should be similar. The odds are better than 99% that the employer is trying to take advantage of the employee in that latter case - and trying to force the employee to thoughtlessly relinquish in haste valid and enforceable legal rights that the employee already and otherwise possesses.

By comparison, what does an entertainment attorney do, when given or forwarded a document intended for signature in the context of a rights deal, for example? The entertainment lawyer will typically indicate to the party who proffers the document for signature: “Thank you - my client and I will review and respond to this document”. Period. If the “proffering” party then says: “Hey entertainment lawyer, aren’t you or your client going to sign it now?”, the entertainment attorney answers with a flat “No”. Although it is possible that the proffering party will thereafter withdraw whatever offer the document contains and take it permanently off-the-table, they typically won’t. And if they do, it probably was not an offer worth taking anyway. This analysis also applies to written employment severance packages, releases, and settlement agreements, just as it does to talent agreements, agent and manager agreements, car purchase agreements, and just about any other form of proposed contract that one might ever be offered. Again, this rule is by no means entertainment attorney-specific, but instead is generalizable to the employment context and across all sectors and industries.

The protocols of professionalism create an expectation that all parties should be given a reasonable opportunity to review a document, including a proposed employment severance document, prior to either: (1) signing it as written (an extremely unlikely occurrence, by the way, if a good attorney reviews it for the employee); or else (2) responding to the proposed document with a fax, letter, red-line comparison draft, or mark-up indicating the receiving party’s proposed changes. This would normally be the way entertainment attorneys would interact with and between each other on a proposed license agreement, for example. The two entertainment lawyers would expect careful reading and deliberation on either end. If a proffering employer-party in the severance context, however, instead threatens to withdraw the document “since it wasn’t signed on-the-spot”, then they are just being ridiculous and overbearing. The odds are, again, better than 99% that their “non-negotiable” document would have been a legal disaster for the employee to sign as initially proposed. Again, this observation applies to employment severance packages, and most all other forms of proposed draft agreements in most all contexts other than employment, too.

Some employers in the media and entertainment industry context and otherwise even have the unmitigated gall these days to ask employees to prospectively waive their right to a jury trial in the context of so-called “non-negotiable” employment agreements including severance or other exit agreements, as but one type of egregious example of the foregoing. It is jungle out there. If one is asked to sign an employment severance agreement with jury trial waiver or other exit document on-the-spot, it is entirely fair and within one’s rights to say that “I will need to review this document with my attorney”, or “I don’t sign documents of a legal nature without attorney review”. And, if the proffering party disputes the employee’s right to legal representation, perhaps this is someone that the employee doesn’t want to accommodate anyway, on principle. This country’s entire legal history was predicated, in substantial part, on the rights of the individual, and the individual’s right to counsel. The framers of the Constitution worked hard. It would be a mistake to let them down now.

The next rule is a corollary to the prohibition on “on-the-spot” signing: The employee should never believe the employer, when the employer offers a “standard” form of employment severance agreement or otherwise. An entertainment attorney will tell you that “standard” is the biggest lie in the entertainment industry. It should be considered comparably fallacious in the employment context. If the employee wants to empower himself or herself in the workplace and in the commercial world, what the employee needs to do is repeat the following phrase repeatedly, like a mantra: “There is no such thing as a ‘standard form’. There is no such thing as a ‘standard form’”. Because, there isn’t, as any entertainment lawyer should tell you.

Rather, “standard form”, after an entertainment attorney on the receiving end translates it, just means “get over on you”. Similarly, a “standard form” employment severance document is synonymous for “oppressive and one-sided form that takes advantage of the employee”. The employee should remember that the draftsperson of a so-called “standard form” is probably a fairly predatory-minded employer-side lawyer handling the company’s employment severance protocols en masse who is under absolutely no obligation to protect - or indeed even acknowledge or accommodate - the employee’s interests. Indeed, the opposite is true. The employer-counsel’s professional obligation as a member of the Bar handling the employer-side severance work is to be a zealous advocate of only his or her own client’s interests - that is, the employer’s interests only. If the employee signs an employment severance document because the other side tells the employee it is a “standard” or “non-negotiable” form, then the employee might as well be walking off the roof of the proverbial building just because the employee was told to do it. The employee should not trust “standard forms” in the employment severance context or otherwise, or those employers who purport to furnish them. Again, this may be an entertainment attorney observation, but it applies to all workplaces and other contracting situations as well.

The employee should make sure to have retained copies of every single scrap of paper pertaining to his or her employment relationship with any company, up to and including the time of the severance communications. The employee should not trust or rely upon the employer to give the employee copies of - or even access to - those employment documents and the employee’s human resources file, if and when the employee’s work honeymoon period with the employer ends, or if and when the employee’s services are, or are about to be, terminated in a severance or other context. Remember that the Japanese model of “employment for life”, and the antiquarian U.S. model of the gold watch after 40 years of service, just simply do not apply anymore. Severance and parachutes - and these days the absence of them too - often replace the old model of dutiful loyalty.

Our United States work-force is more mobile and transient than it ever has been. The workforce I see as an entertainment attorney practicing in New York, is most decidedly such a miasma. People change jobs all the time, with or without accompanying employment severance packages and exit agreements. The motility of the workforce, by the way, greatly empowers employees to seek out their market-value salary and non-abusive working conditions – so it is not necessarily a bad thing. As a practical matter, in New York or elsewhere, entertainment industry or otherwise, the employee should work with the assumption that the employee will one day have to depart every job ever taken with or without severance, no matter how rosy the employment picture of any job looks initially. If the employee stays at that job until retirement, more power to the employee. But the employee should realize that the statistics indicate this would be an extremely unlikely occurrence in this day and age given current job-market employment conditions.

The employee should make sure that, prior to any severance scenario, his or her exhaustive, fully-complete “job file” is kept at the employee’s home - not in an office desk drawer, not in the company’s file cabinet - not anywhere near the employment workplace. It is astonishing as to how many employees fail to do this simple thing. The employee should remember that the old-fashioned paradigm of “two weeks advance notice and severance” is rapidly becoming a vestige of the past, particularly in the media employment context as I see it from my vantage-point as an entertainment attorney. Many media, software, and other types of employers will now think nothing of having an employee escorted out of the workplace by a human resources rep, or even by security personnel, the day and even moment the employee is terminated. Usually when this happens, the employee is not smiling and holding a severance check when led out of the building towards the parking lot or subway.

Why is this happening? Because employers are becoming increasingly afraid of disgruntled employee (or ex-employee) theft of company material, misappropriation of software, and even sabotage and violence in rarer cases. The employment misappropriation threat is felt particularly by media and entertainment companies, and unfortunately workplace violence incidents are on the rise everywhere. Some employers see the promise of severance - carrot-on-a-stick illusory, or not, as finally offered - to be a hedge against these risks as well. The moral of the story - the employee should keep perfect and thorough contemporaneous documentation of his or her employment file, at home, well prior to any severance scenario.

The employee should save copies of everything - offer letters, acceptance letters, employment contracts, “non-compete” documents, non-disclosure or confidentiality agreements, employee handbooks, time cards or time sheets, performance reviews, expense and reimbursement forms and receipts, insurance and COBRA documents, inter-office memos relating to work and performance, and anything else relating to the employment relationship with the company. The only exception would be, the employee should not remove any material from the workplace which is the employer’s or someone else’s property, or which the employee is contractually or otherwise obligated not to remove from the place of work. As an entertainment attorney handling production matters, I expect this issue to arise often, since an employee will usually depart while at least some non-fungible projects are still in development or production at the employer’s premises. This question of property ownership, intellectual property and otherwise, is sometimes a more difficult judgment to make than it sounds. If ever in doubt - you guessed it - the employee should seek an attorney’s advice prior to any such removal and prior to the closure of the employment severance or other exit documents.

Prior to the severance scenario materializing, the employee should be making thoughtful dated written notes to the employee’s own files and keep them at home, anytime any legally-relevant event happens during employ - such as a supervisor expressing either approval or disapproval with one’s work, or a fellow employee making suggestive or harassing comments in one’s presence. These written notes should be reduced to writing privately, immediately after the event occurs, as opposed to a day or more later. These written notes should quote what was said verbatim (yes, using actual quotation marks, and accurately). The employee should not let these notes merely rely on paraphrases, if possible.

These written notes should be taken home to the extent allowed and feasible, by the employee, on the date of the event so recorded, and should be stored securely in the employee’s employment file at home until ever needed. One would be surprised to learn just how many otherwise-valid employee-side severance-related and other legal causes must be wholly abandoned, simply for the employee’s idle failure to make a written verbatim record of important workplace conversations. This overall issue arises in the context of employment attorney and entertainment attorney work, though familiar to most all other legal practitioners as well. For legal purposes, the employee must assume that a re-constructive written record made in retrospect the following week instead, or a non-verbatim note, is near-worthless relative to one taken at the moment. What the employee wants is what is known as a “contemporaneous written record” - that means, “at the same time as the occurrence of the event itself”. And yes, for most forensic purposes in the employment context, that also could include a careful verbatim written record made by the employee five minutes after the event ends. The employment severance dialogues themselves, if and when verbal alone, should be reduced to writing by the employee in this fashion, too.

Finally, the last rule is a corollary to some of the others mentioned immediately above: The employee should bring or forward a complete photocopy (not originals) of the employment file which the employee kept at home, to the attorney or attorneys – entertainment attorney or otherwise - that the employee is considering to represent the employee in the negotiation of any employment exit and severance agreement, or any litigation or proceeding for wrongful termination of the employment or otherwise.

The employee should remember that what he or she discloses to an entertainment lawyer or any other attorney is strictly confidential, even if the employee never ends up retaining that lawyer to handle the employment severance or exit agreement or any other work. This rule of confidentiality is a serious and inviolate rule. That lawyer could lose his or her license to practice law, if he or she ever betrays the employee’s confidences. Accordingly, after first making sure that the lawyer doesn’t also represent the employer on the employment severance matter (or even otherwise), the employee should be totally candid and thorough in terms of the facts brought to that lawyer’s attention. The employee should not “screen out” facts that the employee thinks are irrelevant or that the entertainment or employment attorney “would never be interested in”. After all, if the employee is not an attorney himself or herself, he or she could be well wrong about this type of conclusion. It is the attorney’s job, not the employee’s, to filter out the irrelevant from the relevant. The employee should give the lawyer all the raw data. The matter may be the first employment severance deal which the employee has ever lived through, but probably not the lawyer’s.

The employee should cover any packet furnished to his or her actual or intended lawyer with a transmittal letter bearing the legend “Strictly Confidential”, or words to similar effect. That cover letter should include a typewritten or word-processed narrative in the employee’s own words, of all the facts and chronology of the severance or other employment matter about which the attorney is being contacted. The employee should not rely upon an oral soliloquy to make his or her point. Rather, the employee should write it all down, in legible font or typeface, before contacting the lawyer. Again, the employee should ensure, prior to divulging these facts to any such attorney, that the attorney does not already represent the employer or any other party closely affiliated with the employer on the employment severance matter (or even otherwise). It is a small world, and the entertainment and employment law bar in the employee’s locale may be even smaller.

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My law practice as an entertainment attorney includes state and federal employment law matters, including terminations, severance packages, executive compensation, settlements, releases, and other human resource matters including those that may arise in the fields of film, music, television, publishing, Internet, and other media and industries. If you have questions about legal issues which affect your career, and require representation, please contact me:

Law Office of John J. Tormey III, Esq.

John J. Tormey III, PLLC

1636 Third Avenue, PMB 188

New York, NY 10128 USA

(212) 410-4142 (phone)

(212) 410-2380 (fax)
jtormey@optonline.net

brightline@att.net

https://www.tormey.org

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Employment And Severance Scenarios

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ATTORNEY ADVERTISEMENT

“Performance” Clauses In Entertainment Contracts: Written By New York Entertainment Lawyer And Music And Film Attorney John J. Tormey III, Esq.

Law Office of John J. Tormey III, Esq. – Entertainment Attorney

John J. Tormey III, PLLC

1636 Third Avenue, PMB 188

New York, NY 10128 USA

(212) 410-4142 (phone)

(212) 410-2380 (fax)

jtormey@optonline.net
brightline@att.net

https://www.tormey.org

“Performance” Clauses In Entertainment Contracts: Written By New York Entertainment Lawyer And Music And Film Attorney John J. Tormey III, Esq.

Producing and editing a masterwork of recorded music is obviously a specialized art form. But so is the entertainment lawyer’s act of drafting clauses, contracts, and contractual language generally. How might the art of the entertainment attorney’s legal drafting a clause or contract affect the musician, composer, songwriter, producer or other artist as a practical matter? Many artists think they will be “home free”, just as soon as they are furnished a draft proposed record contract to sign from the label’s entertainment attorney, and then toss the proposed contract over to their own entertainment lawyer for what they hope will be a rubber-stamp review on all clauses. They are wrong. And those of you who have ever received a label’s “first form” proposed contract are chuckling, right about now.

Just because a U.S. record label forwards an artist its “standard form” proposed contract, does not mean that one should sign the draft contract blindly, or ask one’s entertainment lawyer to rubber-stamp the proposed agreement before signing it blindly. A number of label forms still used today are quite hackneyed, and have been adopted as full text or individual clauses in whole or in part from contract form-books or the contract “boilerplate” of other or prior labels. From the entertainment attorney’s perspective, a number of label recording clauses and contracts actually read as if they were written in haste - just like Nigel Tufnel scrawled an 18-inch Stonehenge monument on a napkin in Rob Reiner’s “This Is Spinal Tap”. And if you are a musician, motion picture fan, or other entertainment lawyer, I bet you know what happened to Tap as a result of that scrawl.

It stands to reason that an artist and his or her entertainment lawyer should carefully review all draft clauses, contracts, and other forms forwarded to the artist for signature, prior to ever signing on to them. Through negotiation, through the entertainment attorney, the artist may be able to interpose more precise and even-handed language in the contract ultimately signed, where appropriate. Inequities and unfair clauses aren’t the only things that need to be removed by one’s entertainment lawyer from a first draft proposed contract. Ambiguities must also be removed, before the contract can be signed as one.

For the artist or the artist’s entertainment attorney to leave an ambiguity or inequitable clause in a signed contract, would be merely to leave a potential bad problem for a later day - particularly in the context of a signed recording contract which could tie up an artist’s exclusive services for many years. And remember, as an entertainment lawyer with any longitudinal data on this item will tell you, the artistic “life-span” of most artists is quite short - meaning that an artist could tie up his or her whole career with one bad contract, one bad signing, or even just one bad clause. Usually these bad contract signings occur before the artist seeks the advice and counsel of an entertainment attorney.

One seemingly-inexhaustible type of ambiguity that arises in clauses in entertainment contracts, is in the specific context of what I and other entertainment lawyers refer to as a contract “performance clause”. A non-specific commitment in a contract to perform, usually turns out to be unenforceable. Consider the following:

Contract Clause #1: “Label shall use best efforts to market and publicize the Album in the Territory”.

Contract Clause #2: “The Album, as

delivered to Label by Artist, shall be produced and edited using only first-class facilities and equipment for sound recording and all other activities relating to the Album”.

One shouldn’t use either clause in a contract. One shouldn’t agree to either clause as written. One should negotiate contractual edits to these clauses through one’s entertainment lawyer, prior to signature. Both clauses set forth proposed contractual performance obligations which are, at best, ambiguous. Why? Well, with regard to Contract Clause #1, reasonable minds, including those of the entertainment attorneys on each side of the transaction, can differ as to what “best efforts” really means, what the clause really means if different, or what the two parties to the contract intended “best efforts” to mean at the time (if anything). Reasonable minds, including those of the entertainment lawyers on each side of the negotiation, can also differ as to what constitutes a “first-class” facility as it is “described” in Contract Clause #2. If these contractual clauses were ever scrutinized by judge or jury under the hot lights of a U.S. litigation, the clauses might well be stricken as void for vagueness and unenforceable, and judicially read right out of the corresponding contract itself. In the view of this particular New York entertainment attorney, yes, the clauses really are that bad.

Consider Contract Clause #1, the “best efforts” clause, from the entertainment lawyer’s perspective. How would the artist really go about enforcing that contractual clause as against a U.S. label, as a practical matter? The answer is, the artist probably wouldn’t, at end of day. If there ever were a contract dispute between the artist and label over money or the marketing expenditure, for example, this “best efforts” clause would turn into the artist’s veritable Achilles Heel in the contract, and the artist’s entertainment attorney might not be able to help the artist out of it as a practical matter:

Artist: “You breached the ‘best efforts’ clause in the contract!”

Label: “No! I tried! I tried! I really did!”

You get the idea.

Why should an artist leave a label with that kind of contractual “escape-hatch” in a clause? The entertainment lawyer’s answer is, “no reason at all”. There is absolutely no reason for the artist to put his or her career at risk by agreeing to a vague or lukewarm contractual marketing commitment clause, if the marketing of the Album is perceived to be an essential part of the deal by and for the artist. It often is. It would be the artist’s career at stake. If the marketing spend throughout the contract’s Term diminishes over time, so too could the artist’s public recognition and career as a result. And the equities should be on the artist’s side, in a contractual negotiation conducted between entertainment attorneys over this item.

Assuming that the label is willing to commit to a contractual marketing spend clause at all, then, the artist-side entertainment lawyer argues, the artist should be entitled to know in advance how his or her career would be protected by the label’s expenditure of marketing dollars. Indeed, asks the entertainment attorney, “Why else is the artist signing this deal other than an advance, marketing spend, and tour support?”. The questions may be phrased a bit differently nowadays, in the current age of the contract now known as the “360 deal”. The clauses may evolve, or devolve, but the equitable arguments remain principally the same.

The point is, it is not just performers that should be held to performance clauses in contracts. Companies can be asked by entertainment lawyers to subscribe to performance clauses in contracts, too. In the context of a performance clause - such as a record label’s contractual obligation to market and publicize an album - it is incumbent upon the artist, and the artist’s entertainment attorney if any, to be very specific in the clause itself about what is contractually required of the record company. It should never be left to a subsequent verbal side conversation. In other words, working with his or her entertainment lawyer, the artist should write out a “laundry-list” clause setting forth each of the discrete things that the artist wants the label to do. As but a partial example:

Contract Clause #3: “To market and publicize the Album in the Territory, you, Label, will spend no less than ‘x’ U.S. dollars on advertising for the Album during the following time period: ____________”; or even,

Contract Clause #4: “To market and publicize the Album in the Territory, you, Label, will hire the ___________ P.R. firm in New York, New York, and you will cause no less than ‘y’ U.S. dollars to be expended for publicity for and directly relating to the Album (and no other property or material) during the following time period: _____________”.

Compare Clauses #3 and #4, to Contract Clause #1 earlier above, and then ask yourself or your own entertainment attorney: Which are more hortatory? Which are more precise?

As for Contract Clause #2 and its vague unexplained definition of “first-class facilities and equipment” – why not have one’s entertainment lawyer instead just include in the contract a laundry-list clause of the names of five professional recording studios in the relevant city, that both parties, label and artist, prospectively agree constitute “first-class” for definitional purposes? This is supposed to be a contract, after all, the entertainment attorney opines. “Don’t leave your definitions, and therefore definitional problems, for a later document or a later day, unless you truly want to make a personal financial commitment to keeping more litigators awash in business debating bad clauses and bad contracts before the courts”.

If you don’t ask, you don’t get. Through the entertainment lawyer, the artist should make the label expressly sign on to a very specific contractual list of tasks in an appropriate clause, monitor the label’s progress thereafter, and hold the label to the specific contractual standard that the artist was smart enough to “carve in” in the clause through the entertainment attorney in the first instance.

* * * *

Again, consider Contract Clause #2, the “first class facilities and equipment” clause, from the entertainment lawyer’s perspective. Note that, unlike Contract Clause #1, this is a promise made by the artist to the label - and not a promise made by the label to the artist.

So, an artist might now ask his or her entertainment attorney:

“The shoe’s on the other foot, isn’t it?”

“‘First class’ in that clause is as vague and undefined a contractual standard as ‘best efforts’, isn’t it, entertainment lawyer?”

Entertainment attorney answer: “Right”.

“So, entertainment lawyer, there won’t be any harm in me, the artist, signing onto that contractual clause, will there, because I will be able to wiggle out of it if I ever had to, right?”

Entertainment attorney answer: “Wrong”.

The fact is, a contractual ambiguity in a performance clause is a bad thing - in either case - whether in the context of a label obligation to artist; or even in the context of an artist obligation to a label. The entertainment lawyer should advise that any contractual ambiguity in any clause could hurt the artist, even in the context of one of the artist’s own obligations to the other contracting party. Don’t rest on the linchpin of ambiguities in clauses when conducting business and relying on contracts - even if, in your musical art form itself, as Cameron Crowe once suggested of my first guitar hero Peter Frampton, you may happen to write “obscurantist” song lyrics while taking your own artistic license. Contracts need to be handled differently.

Here’s how ambiguity in your own contractual commitment to a label hurts you, from the entertainment lawyer’s perspective. The old-saw contractual principle of music “delivery” often finds the artist required to hand over documents to the label, as well as physical materials such as the album itself in the form of masters, digital masters, or “glass masters”, in order to get paid. By virtue of a contractually-delineated procedure vetted by and between entertainment attorneys, the label may be entitled to hold some (or even all) monies back, and not pay those monies to the artist until “delivery is complete” under the delivery clauses and delivery schedule in a contract. As one might therefore guess, “delivery” is a definite event whose occurrence or non-occurrence under the contract is oft-contested and sometimes even arbitrated or otherwise litigated by and between artists, labels, and the entertainment lawyers and litigators that represent them.

It is incumbent upon the artist and the artist’s entertainment attorney to prevent the label from drumming-up a pretextual “failed delivery” under any clause in the contract as an excuse for non-payment. In the context of Contract Clause #2 above, “first-class facilities and equipment” could easily become that pretext - the artist’s Achilles Heel in the litigation-tested contract contested between entertainment lawyer litigators. The label could simply take the position through counsel or otherwise that the delivered materials were not created at a “first-class” facility as contractually required in the relevant clause, no matter what facility was used. Why? Because “first-class” was never defined in any clause in the contractual document by either entertainment attorney on either side, as any particular facility.

And if no clause in the contract explicitly defined “first class” as an entertainment lawyer would have advised that it should do, then the artist could well be out the money, at least for the entire duration of an eminently avoidable multi-year litigation over what two dumb words mean. Worse yet, meanwhile, the label might be holding the money and laughing at the artist behind the artist’s back for his or her lack of contractual prescience. From the artist-side entertainment lawyer’s perspective, both of those horror-show possible eventualities and scenarios, are intolerable. They could have been avoided by a single, better clause – often the narrow reed upon which an artist’s success ultimately rests. (Ask Billy Joel. Ask Neil Young. Ask Bruce Springsteen. Ask George Michael. Ask John Fogerty).

What about prescience? How can this foreseeable contractual delivery dispute in the context of Contract Clause #2, be avoided by the entertainment lawyer? The simple solution in this case, again, is for the artist’s entertainment attorney to take a few extra minutes during the negotiations, and textually list-out, in a reply draft counter-proposed contract sent to the label, even if a single succinct clause, the actual facilities intended to be used. The artist-side entertainment lawyer can seek to make the label explicitly contractually pre-agree to the list of facilities, by name and address, in the body of the contract’s text. That is what a contract is for, anyway, as an entertainment attorney will tell you. When used correctly, a contract and its clauses really just comprise a dispute-avoidance tool. An entertainment contract should be a dispute-avoidance tool exchanged between entertainment lawyers. Also note that a contractual ambiguity in a clause could hurt an artist, regardless of whether it is embedded in one of the artist’s performance obligations, or even in one of the label’s performance obligations! The moral?: List all performance obligations. Break them down into discrete and understandable tasks, clause by clause. Approach it the same way an entertainment attorney would. Better yet – enlist the assistance of one before forming an opinion about the clauses or signing the contract.

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My entertainment law practice includes the drafting, editing, negotiation, and closure of personal service agreements as well as all other entertainment transactional and advisory matters in the fields of music, film, television, publishing, Internet, and all other media and art forms. If you have questions about legal issues which affect your career, and require representation, please contact me:

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John J. Tormey III, PLLC

1636 Third Avenue, PMB 188

New York, NY 10128 USA

(212) 410-4142 (phone)

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jtormey@optonline.net
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“Performance” Clauses In Entertainment Contracts

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Personal Service Contracts: Written By New York Entertainment Attorney And Film And Music Lawyer John J. Tormey III, Esq.

Law Office of John J. Tormey III, Esq. – Entertainment Lawyer
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New York, NY 10128

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Personal Service Contracts: Written By New York Entertainment Attorney And Film And Music Lawyer John J. Tormey III, Esq.

1. What Items Should Appear In A Personal Services Contract?

An entertainment attorney will opine that personal services agreements in New York, California or elsewhere can be fairly complex in regard to the issues that they present - yes, even if the total compensation payable under the personal service contract is not too large. It would be beyond the scope of this article to set forth an exhaustive list of issues for the entertainment attorney to spot in any New York or other personal services contract. But some of the key issues for talent, in a personal services agreement in the entertainment world, are considered to be:

A. Compensation: The first talent-side entertainment attorney contract concern.

How much will one be paid, and how will one be paid, under the personal services contract?

B. Credit. The second talent-side entertainment attorney contract concern.

What credit, if any, will one get for one’s work, and in what manner, pursuant to the personal services agreement?

C. Term. The third talent-side entertainment attorney contract concern.

This is a critical point: For how long will one be required to render services under the personal services contract?

D. Territory. The fourth talent-side entertainment attorney contract concern.

In what country/city/state/territory is one required to render services pursuant to the personal services agreement?

E. Media. The fifth talent-side entertainment attorney contract concern.

In what specific media can, and can’t, one’s work product be used according to the personal services contract?

F. (Non)Exclusivity. The sixth talent-side entertainment attorney contract concern.

Is the artist exclusive to the hiring party; or alternatively, can the artist work elsewhere and/or in other ways during the Term of the personal services agreement?

G. Worker Status. The seventh talent-side entertainment attorney contract concern.

Is the worker an employee, or an independent contractor, under the personal services contract (choose only one answer!)

There are actually quite a number of other issues for an entertainment attorney, or the intended signatory client, to consider, in the context of personal services contracts, in addition. The above list will certainly start the contractual dialogue or respond to the contractual dialogue of any prospective hiring party, however.

2. What Should Be Avoided In A Personal Services Contract?

Again, it would be beyond the scope of this article to set forth an exhaustive list of all contractual traps for the entertainment attorney to avoid in personal service agreements, as a matter of New York law or otherwise. Indeed, there are probably at least as many contractual traps, as there are New York and Los Angeles in-house entertainment lawyers working at these hiring corporations! (and I say this with all due respect to my friends who work in-house, of course). But some of the more colossal mistakes that an artist could make in a personal service contract, typically without first consulting an entertainment attorney, might be as follows:

A. Back-End: Taking the entirety of one’s compensation under the personal services agreement, as contingent or “back-end”. This Hollywood hustle is just as familiar a phenomenon in New York City’s TriBeCa and elsewhere, as well. The fact of the matter is, if the artist is a professional, or if the artist otherwise values his or her own skills and time, then the artist’s work product is valuable and should be recognized as such under the contract. The “buyer” of services and work product under the personal services contract should be required to put at least some earnest money on the barrel, first – whether that barrel be located in New York or anywhere else. One of the entertainment attorney’s functions should be to make this happen. And, the artist should not be expected to commence services under the personal services agreement until those numbers first show up in the artist’s bank account, whatever the numbers are negotiated to be, by and between the entertainment attorneys on either side of the contract.

B. Vagueness: Leaving the Term, Territory, Media and Exclusivity provisions vague in the personal services contract. Artists have found their careers paralyzed for huge amounts of time, due to contractual mistakes like this. No non-lawyer should try to write or edit these personal services agreement clauses on his or her own, and the drafter and/or editor of the contract really should be an entertainment attorney solely representing the artist. No one should blindly sign on to these contractual clauses as offered, particularly if they are vague. (In other words, don’t try this at home. Get professional help from an entertainment attorney, period). For example, if the artist only intended to bind himself or herself to a manager exclusively for New York work alone, imagine her surprise when the manager seeks a commission for a Los Angeles gig that the artist booked on the artist’s own.

C. Forever: Failing to limit the Term of the personal services contract to a reasonable and precise period of time. “Perpetuity”, if ever agreed to, is guaranteed to become one’s own private Hell – sort of like a New York City subway tunnel at 3:00 AM, but worse. The contractual Hell would be forever, and after all, the entertainment attorney may not live to see the artist through a period of time that long. Leaving the Term quantitatively vague in a personal services agreement is just about as bad a mistake as calling it “Perpetuity”, and an entertainment lawyer should prevent an artist from making this contractual mistake. Life is too short and valuable to make open-ended and blank-check commitments to people – in personal services contracts, or otherwise.

3. How Can A New York Entertainment Attorney Tell If A Personal Services Contract Is One-Sided In The Hiring Party’s Favor?

The answer is, if the hiring party furnished the personal services agreement to an artist, then the contract is one-sided in the hiring party’s favor! That was a rhetorical question. And the ability to answer it is not really limited to New York entertainment lawyers alone.

The hiring party is under no obligation to protect the artist’s interests in a legal document, personal services contract or otherwise. If upon receipt of the intended contractual document, you snooze, then you lose. One’s entertainment attorney is one’s hope for re-calibrating the scales of justice evenly, in this type of proposed contract and in this type of fact-pattern. The New York courts might even look to whether both sides of the contract were represented by counsel at the time of signing, before upholding the contract or any of its specific clauses. Retaining entertainment lawyer counsel could have multiple and long-term benefits throughout the life of the contract.

And many entertainment lawyers can speak to this phenomenon from their own “personal” experience. Many of us entertainment attorneys, in New York and elsewhere, have drafted, edited, negotiated, and reviewed hundreds or even thousands of contracts. Many of these were personal service agreements. If polled, few New York or other entertainment lawyers can remember even one personal service contract first offered by a hiring party to any talent clients, that was ever fair.

There is a reason why many New York and other entertainment attorneys and others in the entertainment industry refer to the first-offered personal service agreement form, as the (euphemism) “F.U. Form”. Once an artist retains entertainment lawyer counsel to represent the artist on the personal services contract, one of that entertainment attorney’s first functions is:

A. To get the hiring party to cough up a real personal services contract form in lieu of the “F.U. Form”; if not

B. Take over the drafting of the personal services agreement, entirely.

And yes, signing any entertainment industry proposed personal services agreement, either: (i) on-the-spot, or (ii) in the version exactly as first offered for signature with no contractual edits made, without an entertainment attorney advising you, often turns out to be a mistake.

Click the “Articles” button at:

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to return to the main Articles page.

My New York entertainment law practice includes the drafting, editing, negotiation, and closure of personal service agreements as well as all other contracts and entertainment transactional and advisory matters in the fields of film, music, television, publishing, Internet, and all other media and art forms. If you have questions about legal issues which affect your career, and require representation, please contact me:

Law Office of John J. Tormey III, Esq.

John J. Tormey III, PLLC
1636 Third Avenue, PMB 188
New York, NY 10128

USA

(212) 410-4142 (phone)
(212) 410-2380 (fax)
jtormey@optonline.net
brightline@att.net
https://www.tormey.org

Page:
Personal Service Contracts

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The Need For An Entertainment Lawyer In Film Production: Written By New York Entertainment Attorney And Film Lawyer John J. Tormey III, Esq.

Law Office of John J. Tormey III, Esq. – Entertainment Attorney

John J. Tormey III, PLLC

1636 Third Avenue, PMB 188

New York, NY 10128 USA

(212) 410-4142 (phone)

(212) 410-2380 (fax)
jtormey@optonline.net

brightline@att.net

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The Need For An Entertainment Lawyer In Film Production: Written By New York Entertainment Attorney And Film Lawyer John J. Tormey III, Esq.

Does the film producer really need a film lawyer or entertainment attorney as a matter of professional motion picture practice? An entertainment lawyer’s own bias and my stacking of the question notwithstanding, which might naturally indicate a “yes” answer 100% of the time - the forthright answer is, “it depends”. A number of motion picture producers these days are themselves film lawyers, entertainment attorneys, or other types of lawyers, and so, often can take care of themselves. But the filmed motion picture producers to worry about, are the ones who act as if they are entertainment lawyers - but without a license or entertainment attorney legal experience to back it up. Filmmaking and motion picture practice comprise an industry wherein these days, unfortunately, “bluff” and “bluster” sometimes serve as substitutes for actual knowledge and experience. But “bluffed” documents and motion picture production procedures will never escape the trained eye of entertainment attorneys working for the studios, the distributors, the banks, or the errors-and-omissions (E&O) insurance carriers. For this reason alone, I suppose, the job function of film production counsel and entertainment lawyer is still secure.

I also suppose that there will always be a few lucky filmmakers who, throughout the entire motion picture production process, fly under the proverbial radar without entertainment attorney accompaniment. They will seemingly avoid pitfalls and liabilities like flying bats are reputed to avoid people’s hair. By way of analogy, one of my best friends hasn’t had any health insurance for years, and he is still in good shape and economically afloat - this week, anyway. Taken in the aggregate, some people will always be luckier than others, and some people will always be more inclined than others to roll the dice.

But it is all too simplistic and pedestrian to tell oneself that “I’ll avoid the need for filmed motion picture lawyers if I simply stay out of trouble and be careful”. An entertainment lawyer, especially in the realm of film (or other) production, can be a real constructive asset to a motion picture producer, as well as the film producer’s personally-selected inoculation against potential liabilities. If the producer’s motion picture entertainment attorney has been through the process of film production previously, then that entertainment lawyer has already learned many of the harsh lessons regularly dished out by the commercial world and the film business.

The film and entertainment lawyer can therefore spare the motion picture producer many of those pitfalls. How? By clear thinking, careful planning, and - this is the absolute key - skilled, thoughtful and complete documentation of all film production and related motion picture activity. The film lawyer should not be thought of as simply the cowboy or cowgirl wearing the proverbial “black hat”. Sure, the entertainment lawyer may sometimes be the one who says “no”. But the filmed motion picture entertainment attorney can be a positive force in the production as well.

The film lawyer can, in the course of legal representation, assist the motion picture producer as an effective business consultant, too. If that entertainment lawyer has been involved with scores of film productions, then the motion picture producer who hires that film lawyer entertainment attorney benefits from that very cache of experience. Yes, it sometimes may be difficult to stretch the film budget to allow for motion picture counsel, but professional filmmakers tend to view the legal cost expenditure to be a fixed, predictable, and necessary one - akin to the fixed obligation of rent for the motion picture production office, or the cost of film for the cameras. While some film and entertainment lawyers may price themselves out of the price range of the average independent film producer, other entertainment attorneys do not.

Enough generalities. For what specific tasks must a motion picture producer typically retain a film lawyer and entertainment attorney?:

1. INCORPORATION, OR FORMATION OF AN “LLC”: To paraphrase Michael Douglas’s Gordon Gekko character in the motion picture “Wall Street” when speaking to Bud Fox while on the morning beach on the oversized mobile phone, this entity-formation issue usually constitutes the entertainment attorney’s “wake-up call” to the film producer, telling the film producer that it is time. If the motion picture producer doesn’t properly create, file, and maintain a corporate or other appropriate entity through which to conduct business, and if the film producer doesn’t thereafter make every effort to keep that entity bullet-proof, says the entertainment lawyer, then the film producer is potentially shooting himself or herself in the foot. Without the shield against liability that an entity can provide, the entertainment attorney opines, the motion picture producer’s personal assets (like house, car, bank account) are at risk and, in a worst-case scenario, could ultimately be seized to satisfy the debts and liabilities of the film producer’s business. In other words:

Patient: “Doctor, it hurts my head when I do that”.

Doctor: “So? Don’t do that”.

Like it or not, the film lawyer entertainment attorney continues, “Film is a speculative business, and the statistical majority of motion pictures can fail economically - even at the San Fernando Valley film studio level. It is insane to run a film business or any other form of business out of one’s own personal bank account”. Besides, it looks unprofessional, a real concern if the motion picture producer wants to attract talent, bankers, and distributors at any point in the future.

The choices of where and how to file an entity are often prompted by entertainment lawyers but then driven by situation-specific variables, including tax concerns relating to the film or motion picture company sometimes. The film producer should let a motion picture lawyer or entertainment attorney do it and do it correctly. Entity-creation is affordable. Good lawyers don’t look at incorporating a client as a profit-center anyway, because of the obvious potential for new business that an entity-creation brings. While the film producer should be aware that under U.S. law a client can fire his/her lawyer at any time at all, many entertainment lawyers who do the motion picture entity-creation work get asked to do further work for that same client - especially if the entertainment attorney bills the first job reasonably.

I wouldn’t recommend self-incorporation by a non-lawyer - any more than I would tell a film producer-client what actors to hire in a motion picture - or any more than I would tell a D.P.-client what lens to use on a specific film shot. As will be true on a film production set, everybody has their own job to do. And I believe that as soon as the producer lets a competent motion picture lawyer or entertainment lawyer do his or her job, things will start to gel for the film production in ways that couldn’t even be originally foreseen by the motion picture producer.

2. SOLICITING INVESTMENT: This issue also often constitutes a wake-up call of sorts. Let’s say that the film producer wants to make a motion picture with other people’s money. (No, not an unusual scenario). The film producer will likely start soliciting funds for the movie from so-called “passive” investors in any number of possible ways, and may actually start collecting some monies as a result. Sometimes this occurs prior to the entertainment lawyer hearing about it post facto from his or her client.

If the film producer is not a lawyer, then the motion picture producer should not even think of “trying this at home”. Like it or not, the entertainment lawyer opines, the film producer will thereby be selling securities to people. If the motion picture producer promises investors some pie-in-the-sky results in the context of this inherently speculative business called film, and then collects money on the basis of that representation, believe me, the film producer will have even more grave problems than conscience to deal with. Securities compliance work is among the most difficult of matters faced by an entertainment attorney.

As both entertainment lawyers and securities lawyers will opine, botching a solicitation for film (or any other) investment can have severe and federally-mandated consequences. No matter how great the film script is, it’s never worth monetary fines and jail time - not to mention the veritable unspooling of the unfinished motion picture if and when the producer gets nailed. All the while, it is shocking to see how many ersatz film producers in the real world try to float their own “investment prospectus”, complete with boastful anticipated multipliers of the box office figures of the famed motion pictures “E.T.” and “Jurassic Park” combined. They draft these monstrosities with their own sheer creativity and imagination, but usually with no entertainment or film lawyer or other legal counsel. I’m sure that some of these motion picture producers think of themselves as “visionaries” while writing the prospectus. Entertainment attorneys and the rest of the bar, and bench, may tend to think of them, instead, as prospective ‘Defendants’.

Enough said.

3. DEALING WITH THE GUILDS: Let’s assume that the film producer has decided, even without entertainment attorney guidance yet, that the motion picture production entity will need to be a signatory to collective bargaining agreements of unions such as Screen Actors Guild (SAG), the Directors Guild (DGA), and/or the Writers Guild (WGA). This is a subject matter area that some film producers can handle themselves, particularly motion picture producers with experience. But if the film producer can afford it, the producer should consult with a film lawyer or entertainment lawyer prior to making even any initial contact with the guilds. The motion picture’s producer should certainly consult with an entertainment attorney or film lawyer prior to issuing any writings to the guilds, or signing any of their documents. Failure to plan out these guild issues with film or entertainment attorney counsel ahead of time, could lead to problems and expenses that sometimes make it cost-prohibitive to thereafter continue with the motion picture’s further production.

4. CONTRACTUAL AFFAIRS GENERALLY: A film production’s agreements should all be in writing, and not saved until the last minute, as any entertainment attorney will observe. It will be more expensive to bring film counsel or a motion picture entertainment lawyer in, late in the day - sort of like booking an airline flight a few days before the planned travel. A film producer should remember that a plaintiff suing for breach of a bungled contract might not only seek money for damages, but could also seek the equitable relief of an injunction (translation: “Judge, stop this production... stop this motion picture… stop this film… Cut!”).

A film producer does not want to suffer a back claim for talent compensation, or a disgruntled location-landlord, or state child labor authorities - threatening to enjoin or shut the motion picture production down for reasons that could have been easily avoided by careful planning, drafting, research, and communication with one’s film lawyer or entertainment lawyer. The movie production’s agreements should be drafted with care by the entertainment attorney, and should be customized to encompass the special characteristics of the motion picture production.

As an entertainment lawyer, I have seen non-lawyer film producers try to do their own legal drafting for their own motion pictures. As mentioned above, some few are lucky, and remain under the proverbial radar. But consider this: if the film producer sells or options the project, one of the first things that the film distributor or film buyer (or its own film and entertainment attorney counsel) will want to see, is the “chain of title” and development and production file, complete with all signed agreements. The motion picture production’s insurance carrier may also want to see these same documents. So might the guilds, too. And their entertainment lawyers. The documents must be written so as to survive the audience.

Therefore, for a film producer to try to “fake it” oneself is simply to put many problems off for another day, as well as create an air of non-attorney amateurism to the motion picture production file. It will be less expensive for the film producer to attack all of these issues earlier as opposed to later, through use of a film lawyer or entertainment attorney. And the likelihood is that any self-respecting film attorney and entertainment lawyer is going to have to re-draft substantial parts (if not all) of the producer’s self-drafted motion picture production file, once he or she sees what the non-lawyer film producer has done to it on his or her own - and that translates into unfortunate and wasted expense. I would no sooner want my chiropractor to draft and negotiate his own filmed motion picture contracts, than I would put myself on his table and try to crunch through my own backbone adjustments. Furthermore, I wouldn’t do half of the chiropractic adjustment myself, and then call the chiropractor into the examining room to finish what I had started. (I use the chiropractic motif only to spare you the cliché old saw of “performing surgery on oneself”).

There are many other reasons for retaining a film lawyer and entertainment attorney for motion picture work, and space won’t allow all of them. But the above-listed ones are the big ones.

Click the “Articles” button at:

https://www.tormey.org/art.htm

to return to the main Articles page.

My film law practice includes rights, union, financing, exhibition, distribution, production counsel, and all other transactional and advisory matters as they arise in motion pictures and in the fields of music, television, and entertainment generally. If you have questions about legal issues which affect your career, and require representation, please contact me:

Law Office of John J. Tormey III, Esq.

John J. Tormey III, PLLC

1636 Third Avenue, PMB 188

New York, NY 10128 USA

(212) 410-4142 (phone)

(212) 410-2380 (fax)
jtormey@optonline.net

brightline@att.net

https://www.tormey.org/

Page:

The Need For A Lawyer In Film Production

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