Let’s start with everyone’s favorite target, the lawyer. As stated earlier, until recently most books on the music industry have been written by attorneys. As a result, these books tend to overlook the lawyer’s contribution to certain problems in this business. Whether this is done out of convenience or naiveté is anyone’s guess. Consider what follows as equal time.
Before any record deal is done, it must go through a lawyer, usually several in fact. The reason: if both sides of the deal are not properly represented, the entire contract may be disputed down the line. That’s the actual law! (As practiced by lawyers.)
Because lawyers are centrally placed on all sides of the deal, they have the ear of every important person you will need to know.
Fees for attorneys normally range anywhere from $125 per hour to $600 per hour, although sometimes the lawyer will work for a percentage of the deal instead of an hourly fee. The size of the deal—whether with a major label, a small indie, or a production company—will usually determine the size of the lawyer’s fee.
Lawyers typically come from educated upper-middle-class backgrounds and earn anywhere from $60,000 to $500,000 a year. The cream of the crop have been reported to make $1,000,000 per year and up. Clive Davis started out as an attorney and became the president of Arista Records. In 1995, his contract was renewed for $5 million per year (but that’s minus a bonus).
However, you shouldn’t think that just because the lawyer you’ve been speaking to has platinum records and framed law degrees on his wall he or she has great knowledge of the law. Many music biz lawyers are more salesmen than litigators. The mainstay of their day revolves around meetings and lunches to rope in business. They are often called “rainmakers.”
Behind them, kept well out of sight of the clients, are what I call “the worker bees.” They stay in the office well past 9 P.M., drafting the contracts and making sure the rainmakers, who promised the world to the client, can actually deliver. The worker bees aren’t slick like the rainmakers. They get less glory, but they are the ones who really know what’s going on and what you can and can’t get away with. One way I can always tell a rainmaker from a worker right off the bat—workers wear less jewelry.1
One other type of lawyer is one I call “the crusader.” Crusaders tend to be young attorneys just starting out in business. They’ve picked up all the book smarts in law school but have yet to learn how to apply it to real life. As with most people who are new, they tend to be somewhat idealistic about how things actually work. The result can be that they over-negotiate a deal into nonexistence. Afterward they will justify their actions by saying it was a lousy deal anyway
New attorneys tend not to understand that business is about people, not clauses, especially in the music business. It’s about relationships. Keeping an eye on the bottom line can be shortsighted in a business where most people are not initially making a huge living. Unfortunately, lawyers are trained to see things in an arbitrary fashion, so sometimes they can do more harm than good, especially when negotiating small money deals. My friend Larry, who is a music industry attorney, says he would never hire a lawyer who wasn’t, at some time, in business for himself. I agree, but this isn’t always practical.
Some crusaders mature into excellent lawyers; some don’t. Until you can determine which way they will go, my advice is to steer clear of the crusader
Reply
INDIEMUSICGROUP / Blog
Lawyers
Let’s start with everyone’s favorite target, the lawyer. As stated earlier, until recently most books on the music industry have been written by attorneys. As a result, these books tend to overlook the lawyer’s contribution to certain problems in this business. Whether this is done out of convenience or naiveté is anyone’s guess. Consider what follows as equal time. Before any record deal is done, it must go through a lawyer, usually several in fact. The reason: if both sides of the deal are not properly represented, the entire contract may be disputed down the line. That’s the actual law! (As practiced by lawyers.) Because lawyers are centrally placed on all sides of the deal, they have the ear of every important person you will need to know. Fees for attorneys normally range anywhere from $125 per hour to $600 per hour, although sometimes the lawyer will work for a percentage of the deal instead of an hourly fee. The size of the deal—whether with a major label, a small indie, or a production company—will usually determine the size of the lawyer’s fee. Lawyers typically come from educated upper-middle-class backgrounds and earn anywhere from $60,000 to $500,000 a year. The cream of the crop have been reported to make $1,000,000 per year and up. Clive Davis started out as an attorney and became the president of Arista Records. In 1995, his contract was renewed for $5 million per year (but that’s minus a bonus). However, you shouldn’t think that just because the lawyer you’ve been speaking to has platinum records and framed law degrees on his wall he or she has great knowledge of the law. Many music biz lawyers are more salesmen than litigators. The mainstay of their day revolves around meetings and lunches to rope in business. They are often called “rainmakers.” Behind them, kept well out of sight of the clients, are what I call “the worker bees.” They stay in the office well past 9 P.M., drafting the contracts and making sure the rainmakers, who promised the world to the client, can actually deliver. The worker bees aren’t slick like the rainmakers. They get less glory, but they are the ones who really know what’s going on and what you can and can’t get away with. One way I can always tell a rainmaker from a worker right off the bat—workers wear less jewelry.1 One other type of lawyer is one I call “the crusader.” Crusaders tend to be young attorneys just starting out in business. They’ve picked up all the book smarts in law school but have yet to learn how to apply it to real life. As with most people who are new, they tend to be somewhat idealistic about how things actually work. The result can be that they over-negotiate a deal into nonexistence. Afterward they will justify their actions by saying it was a lousy deal anyway New attorneys tend not to understand that business is about people, not clauses, especially in the music business. It’s about relationships. Keeping an eye on the bottom line can be shortsighted in a business where most people are not initially making a huge living. Unfortunately, lawyers are trained to see things in an arbitrary fashion, so sometimes they can do more harm than good, especially when negotiating small money deals. My friend Larry, who is a music industry attorney, says he would never hire a lawyer who wasn’t, at some time, in business for himself. I agree, but this isn’t always practical. Some crusaders mature into excellent lawyers; some don’t. Until you can determine which way they will go, my advice is to steer clear of the crusader
Reply