On June 24, 2011, I caught up with attorney, Nicole Weaver, ESQ., while she was taking a break at the Florida Bar conference. We had a nice chat about what it’s like to be an entertainment lawyer, some legalities to look out for when starting your own business and the importance of trusting in your legal counsel.
Allyson Urban (AU): How did you get started in Entertainment Law and how long have you been practicing?
Nicole Weaver (NW): I’ve been practicing since 2001. I got started in the entertainment industry when I was much younger and I didn’t like being in front of the camera, but I loved the industry as a whole. My grandfather was a lawyer so I was interested in the law as well. When I met an entertainment attorney during my entertainment career, I thought that’d be the perfect opportunity to meld together my two interests without having to be in front of the camera. I ended up interning with that same entertainment attorney to get a feel for what the business was all about. From there I went to law school and then got a job with SONY Pictures [out in California]. Unfortunately 9/11 happened the day after I passed the [Florida] bar, and the day after 9/11, SONY had to reorganize and could no longer provide me the position. I moved back to Florida and met the Florida Film Commissioner who was kind enough to share my name whenever he was asked if there was an attorney in the state that he would recommend. Thus I tripped and fell into my own practice. And it’s been a blessing to have this practice to build, and rely on and have fun with quite frankly.
AU: What has been your biggest challenge so far as an entertainment lawyer and what advice would you give to someone wanting to get into the field?
NW: I’d say the biggest challenge is that you’ve got to know people and know the law and know business – all in one whack. You’ve got to understand all those things in order to make somebody who knows nothing but business or the creative side of things listen to you and realize they may need to change their stance on something. It’s important to get people to trust you enough that they can rely on the fact that your education and background will stand on it’s own and that your advice is good advice. A lot of times what they’ll do is listen to your advice and then go and do exactly the opposite, and then they never succeed on that front and always end up coming back. You don’t want people to learn things the hard way considering they’re paying you, and you want them to have a good experience from what they’re doing.
AU: What are the most common types of contracts that you deal with?
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| Nicole Weaver |
NW: It’s between investors of companies or people building their companies to begin with. I do a lot of operation agreements, or that type of thing, where two people are getting together and are going to make a film happen; or two people are getting together to be a production or music company. I make contracts for them to make sure they start off on the right foot to begin with where everybody understands what they are supposed to be doing, and to make sure if somebody isn’t doing it they have a recourse at it. More specifically as far as the entertainment industry, I see primarily film contracts and contracting the crew and members of the cast.
AU: For my business plan for school I’m developing an Orlando nightclub that would feature live entertainment performers. For someone wanting to start a live entertainment venue such as that, what would be the first legal responsibilities you’d suggest they take care of?
NW: First they’d need to start their business, so incorporate in some way, form or fashion. If you have partners, again make sure that everyone has their duties and responsibilities spelled out to earn their portion of the business. Get it all reduced to writing who’s putting in the money and who’s putting in the services, etc., and do that quickly. Then of course you’d need liquor licenses, ASCAP/BMI public performance licenses and various ordinances.
AU: What would be the biggest misconception or the most common legal error that you see for people starting these live entertainment venues?
NW: It’s funny because they pick up the big things that they see, like getting the performance licenses, but the biggest mistake is not getting something reduced to writing as far as who does what in the business, how to get out of the business if they want out and how the business is valued. [People are often] jumping straight in with both feet without putting the touches on the legal aspects between themselves and whoever they’re dealing with. The other thing would be if you have a pure investor, did you disclose everything that you need to disclose for the amount that they’re investing? If someone is a pure investor versus someone being an investor/business owner, there are a lot of ‘i’’s to dot and ‘t’’s to cross because you have to make sure you comply with both state and federal regulations if there is a certain amount of money involved. Often times people are just trying to get the door open so they can earn some money, but in the meantime they’re not putting in the time and effort to make sure when that money comes in that it’s a stable business that it’s coming in to.
AU: Since you practice in Florida but have also done work in California, are there any entertainment laws that apply specifically to this state and aren’t seen in other places, or vice versa? Or is it just pretty standard across the board?
NW: For the most part it’s standard. Florida has some unique views on privacy laws that are a little different from California. Family Law is completely different as well in California than it is here in Florida. But as far as Entertainment Law, there are not terrible differences, but the main one I see is with the privacy laws.
AU: What would be your main piece of advice to someone wanting to obtain legal counsel for the start of their new business?
NW: Find counsel that you trust, and rely on them, absolutely, 100%. Make sure you get represented by someone in your specific type of business and that they know the ins and outs involved. For example, you wouldn’t want just any attorney handling your real estate contracts, but rather you’d want someone who practices in that field quite often. You want to trust them so that even if the path they suggest is more costly or time consuming than you want, you still know that is the direction you need to go.
