Replies

Which reminds me, I try to always put up the newest lawyers’ profiles when mentioned, but others had started doing it, so I slacked off.

I didn’t see anyone else put up the legal info on the latest laswyer name, except that he’s Britney Spears’ lawyer. Here’s the profile:

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Martin Dori Singer - #78166
Current Status: Active
This member is active and may practice law in California.

Profile Information
Bar Number 78166
Address Lavely & Singer
2049 Century Park E #2400
Los Angeles, CA 90067-2906 Phone Number (310) 556-3501
Fax Number Not Available
e-mail Not Available
District District 7 Undergraduate School City Univ of New York - City College; New York NY
County Los Angeles Law School Brooklyn Law School; Brooklyn NY
Sections Litigation
Intellectual Property

Status History
Effective Date Status Change
Present Active
12/21/1977 Admitted to The State Bar of California
.......
Private Practice Lawyer Profile for Martin D. Singer

Martin D. Singer
Member
Lavely & Singer,
Professional Corporation
2049 Century Park East, Suite 2400
Los Angeles, California 90067
(Los Angeles Co.)

Telephone: 310-556-3501
Telecopier: 310-556-3615

AV Peer Review Rated

Practice Areas: Entertainment Litigation; Business Litigation; Right of Publicity and Privacy Law; Libel Law; Copyright Law; Intellectual Property Litigation; Real Estate Litigation

Admitted: 1977, California; 1978, U.S. District Court, Central District of California; 1990, U.S. Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit

Law School: Brooklyn Law School, J.D., 1977

College: City College of New York, B.A., 1974

Member: Beverly Hills, Century City and Los Angeles County Bar Associations; State Bar of California.

Biography: Phi Beta Kappa; Pi Sigma Alpha. Author: “Regulation of Talent Agents,” 1983 Entertainment Publishing and the Arts Handbook.

Reported Cases: Grammer v. Artists Agency, 287 F.3d 886 (9th Cir. 2002); Harris v. EMI Television Programs, 102 Cal.App.3d 214, 162 Cal.Rptr. 357 (1980); Page v. Something Wierd Video, 908 E. Supp. 714 (C.D. Cal. 1995).

Special Agencies: California Labor Commissioner.
Born: Brooklyn, New York, April 25, 1952
ISLN: 903683720
Web Site: http://www.lavelysinger.com
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Profile

LAVELY & SINGER Professional Corporation is one of the world’s premiere talent-side entertainment litigation firms. The firm’s practice encompasses entertainment and business litigation in State and Federal Courts, including intellectual property, copyright and trademark litigation, media law, right of publicity and privacy law, defamation, contract disputes, business torts, Internet-domain name law, and in matters before specialized tribunals such as the California Labor Commissioner proceedings and the arbitration boards of the Hollywood talent guilds.

Lavely & Singer was established in 1980 and represents a vast array of clients including a lion’s share of Hollywood’s most famous, celebrated and prestigious actors, producers, directors, writers, recording artists and other individuals and entities in and affiliated with the entertainment industry. We generally do not represent the studios, networks, or major labels, concentrating principally on the unique needs of talent.

Our clients’ legal needs fall broadly into two categories. First, we represent clients against the tabloids and other media and internet outlets in disputes which arise prior to, as well as after, the publication of articles which defame the clients or invade their privacy. We also police the manner in which the names and likenesses of our clients are commercially exploited throughout the world. Second, we represent clients in the resolution and litigation of a broad range of entertainment industry disputes including copyright and other intellectual property disputes, contract breaches, and business torts.

Reported cases include: Catherine Zeta-Jones v. Spice House, 372 F. Supp. 2d 568 (C.D. Cal. 2005); Arnold Schwarzenegger v. Fred Martin Motor Co., 374 F.3d 797 (9th Cir. 2004); Kelsey Grammer v. CAA, 287 F.3d 886 (9th Cir. 2002); Cusano v. Klein, 196 F. Supp. 2d 1007 (C.D. Cal. 2002); La Cienega Music Co. v. ZZ Top, 53 F.3d 950 (9th Cir. 1995); Wood Newton v. Harry Thomason, 22 F.3d 1455 (9th Cir. 1994); Playboy Enterprises, Inc. v. Terri Welles, 7 F.Supp.2d 1098 (S.D. Cal. 1998); Charles P. Caudle v. Harry. Thomason, 992 F.Supp. 1 (D.D.C. 1997); Bettie Page v. Something Weird Video, 908 F.Supp. 714 (C.D. Cal. 1995); Gould v. Maryland Sound Industries, Inc., 31 Cal.App.4th 1137 (1995); Robert Selleck v. Globe International, Inc., 166 Cal.App.3d 1123, 212 Cal.Rptr. 838 (1985); Richard Pryor v. David McCoy Franklin, California Department of Industrial Relations, Division of Labor Standards Enforcement, Labor Commissioner, Case No. TAC 17 MP114; Bo Derek v. Karen Callan, California Department of Industrial Relations, Division of Labor Standards and Enforcement, Labor Commissioner, Case No. TAC 18 80SFMP82-80.

Lavely & Singer is committed to providing its clients with the highest level of professional services in the dynamic and ever-changing field of entertainment litigation.

A further profile of the firm’s practice, as well as firm co-founders Marty Singer and Jay Lavely, each named to both the Daily Journal’s 2006 and 2005 lists of the “Top 100 Attorneys in California”, can be found in:

“Raging Bulls: When It’s Time for the Gloves to Come Off, These Attack Dogs of L.A. Law Get the Call,” by Ross Johnson, Los Angeles Magazine, May 2000.

“Court Appeal,”- “Marty Singer makes a career out of un-caging celebrity song-birds,” LA Confidential Magazine, Summer 2003.

“Arnold’s Bouncer” - “Schwarzenegger’s long-time attorney ... Singer has gained a national reputation for representing actors and other talent ...,” The American Lawyer Magazine, December 2003.
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RAGING BULLS
Los Angeles Magazine
Issue: May, 2000
Author: Ross Johnson

When it’s time for the gloves to come off,
these attack dogs of L.A. law get the call . . .

[text omitted]

Marty Singer is the all-around bad cop for stars from Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger to Jim Carrey and Celine Dion.

They’re in the Rolodex of every good white-shoe lawyer in town. Somewhere between the numbers for the Jaguar dealer, Pacific Dining Car and Two Bunch Palms are the names—and it is a short list—of attorneys who are called only in certain situations. Because life is sometimes an easy little 9-iron at Hillcrest—and at other times, it’s a David Mamet play.

When things go bad for a client—and we’re talking off the cliff—the respectable barrister known for his or her brilliant transactional mind, hail-fellow connections and Ivy League charm may have to bring in a different type of attorney. One whose job is to dive into the gutter of a litigious, capitalistic society and win at all costs. In other words, a specialist: one of the pit bulls of L.A. law.

The ladies and gentlemen on the pages that follow are just such specialists. But do not think of them as ogres. Or dishonest. (Nevertheless, they are often called when the opposition lawyer turns out to be one of the 40,000 attorneys in Los Angeles County who is a dishonest ogre.) None of them started out as a favorite-son associate at a big firm. They do not hang out with their clients at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion or Laker games or the Cannes Film Festival. They are instead a function, and reminder, of something that might go terribly wrong in a client’s life. They have the utmost respect within their profession—albeit respect laced with a good dollop of fear.

What these lawyers possess is the proven ability to go all the way, to a jury trial if necessary, and play by whatever rules are laid down to save their client’s freedom or fortune in a civil or criminal matter. On the other hand, when one of them makes a phone call or sends a demand letter, arguments are often settled quickly ... and quietly.

“Marty Singer is a very nice man who loves his family,” says Priscilla Presley of her own personal pit bull. “But if he thinks someone has done me harm, he is a stealth rottweiler.”

FULL-SERVICE CELEB BILLY CLUB

For years, MARTIN D. “MAD DOG” SINGER of Lavely & Singer has been the all-around bad cop for stars like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis, Demi Moore, Sylvester Stallone, Eddie Murphy, Celine Dion, Roseanne and Jim Carrey. “I’ll make one call to a publicist to check out a tip,” growls New York Post Page Six editor Richard Johnson, “and pretty soon I get a hand-delivered letter from Singer threatening all sorts of disasters and financial damages.”

Singer covers the waterfront when it comes to celebrity litigation. If a contractor is too slow to finish the star’s Malibu pad, Singer will rip him a new you know what. When basketballer Dennis Rodman was sued recently for allegedly manhandling a cocktail waitress, Singer took up the Worm’s defense. (The case was dismissed.) When Stallone’s household help in Miami banded together against him in a lawsuit, it was Singer who caught the case—and quickly spun this to the press: The plaintiffs were “hired for six days through a temp agency” and one of them “showed up in high heels to clean the house.”

Singer, 48, has impeccable credentials for pit-bull lawyering. His father died when he was 19, and he had to run the family’s silk-screen printing factory in Manhattan while attending City College of New York. Graduating from Brooklyn Law School in 1977, his goal was to move to California and practice tax law. But he quickly discovered that L.A. transactional lawyers loved a tough litigator who had no desire to buddy up to clients.

Singer can hold his own in a courtroom—he recently won jury verdicts for Jean Claude Van Damme in a contract dispute and Priscilla Presley when she sued a television producer and publicist who lied about her supposed involvement in a deal they were pitching. But it is Singer’s ability to make prying journalists back off that’s made him so valuable—he charges $400 an hour—to folks who are sensitive about their private lives.

In February, he took on the National Enquirer after it published a false story that Celine Dion as pregnant. (Singer demanded a page-one retraction. When the Enquirer refused, he threw down a $20 million invasion-of-privacy suit.) Last January, the Globe apologized to Singer client Schwarzenegger after publishing a bogus tale about his so-called defective heart valve. When Willis wanted to stop the Independent Film Channel last year from showing a documentary critical of him, Singer got the IFC to quickly abandon the idea, much to the public consternation of those at the channel unaccustomed to Hollywood-lawyer hardball. And a big reason the public heard so little about Eddie Murphy being stopped with a transvestite hooker in his car by West Hollywood sheriffs was that Singer bulldogged the tabs on the actor’s behalf.

Enquirer editor Steve Coz, who shared a dais with Singer when they debated at Harvard’s JFK School of Government, deals with him on a weekly basis. “Marty is a heavy hitter, but he’s reasonable,” claims Coz in a careful tone. “He’s one of the few that ‘gets it’—his clients need the press every bit as much as the press needs his clients.”

Don’t tell that to journalist John Connolly. An August 1996 Buzz magazine article dissected Singer’s rabid attempts to discredit Connolly, who had written a damning piece on actor Steven Seagal for Spy. Singer not only slapped a libel suit on Connolly but also hit him with a slander suit for allegedly making derogatory statements about Seagal while reporting the Spy article. (Both suits were quietly withdrawn a few months after the story ran.)

In his Century City office festooned with photos of his three children, Singer manages a wan smile when reminded of the flap. “That story really made me out to be this mean, ruthless lawyer;” he recalls. “I was surprised how much work I ended up getting from it.”

[text omitted]

ROSS JOHNSON
There are lots of lawyers in this town, but where do you turn when things threaten to turn ugly? Esquire, Premiere and Variety contributor Ross Johnson scoured L.A.’s legal world to find out (”Raging Bulls,” page 102). “Every lawyer is supposed to be a tough guy,” says Johnson, who writes the Public Eye column for the L.A. Daily Journal. “But these are the guys you call when you might have to get into the gutter.” Johnson found that having a reputation as a bruiser is not a bad thing. “It’s a good moniker to have,” he says. “It’s much better to be known as an attack dog than as an Emily Dickinson.”