News from the Ziffren Institute.
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With more than $6 million in new contributions led by the Patricia W. Mitchell Trust and Ken Ziffren '65, the Ziffren Center has become the Ziffren Institute for Media, Entertainment, Technology and Sports Law. The endowed gifts fund new scholarships for law students interested in entertainment law, visiting scholars initiatives, and the John H. and Patricia W. Mitchell Achievement Fellowship, a full-tuition award for academically qualified students who are interested in pursuing careers in entertainment law and who have overcome significant obstacles on their path to law school. The new funding also supports the expansion of curricular offerings as part of UCLA Law’s Media, Entertainment and Technology Law and Policy specialization.
Inaugural Mitchell Visiting Scholar Lecture
Dynamic movie studio leader Stacey Snider ’85 returned to UCLA School of Law on Sept. 12 to deliver a Distinguished Alumni Lecture, inaugurating the John H. Mitchell Visiting Scholar initiative. Students filled the room to take in the wisdom and war stories from Snider’s three decades at the pinnacle of the entertainment business. Snider offered a glimpse into what motivated her to become a top executive at 20th Century
Fox, DreamWorks and Universal Pictures, and now the global CEO of Sister, and how current students might similarly pursue their passions after law school.
Ziffren IN-Series Looks to the Future
Now in its third year, the Ziffren IN-Series once again brought together leaders from the entertainment and sports worlds to discuss the issues of today and tomorrow. In October, the Ziffren IN-DC event, “The Future of Content Protection,” featured top level entertainment legal executives and the brightest minds from government and the creative community in discussion about the challenges and opportunities arising in
content protection. The half-day conference featured Viet Dinh, Chief Legal and Policy Officer at Fox Corporation; Gale Anne Hurd, producer of The Terminator, Aliens, and The Walking Dead; Chris Brancato, creator of Netflix’s Narcos; UCLA Law Professor Douglas Lichtman; Rebecca Borden, Senior Vice President and Associate General Counsel, CBS; and Karen Thorland ’94, Senior Vice President and Deputy General Counsel, Global Content Protection at MPA, among others.
In November, the Ziffren IN-Sports event “State of Play: College Sports Today,” welcomed Donald Remy, Chief Operations Officer and Chief Legal Officer of the NCAA. The event also marked the return of recent UCLA Law grad and former Division I NCAA athlete Cody McDavis ‘19. Moderator Doug Greenburg, a partner at Latham & Watkins, led a lively discussion in front of a standing-room only crowd on
topics including the implications of SB 206, better known as the Fair Pay to Play Act, recently signed into law by California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Former Students Become the Teachers
Connecting students with practitioners is a marquee initiative of the Ziffren Institute. This fall, the institute hosted its third annual One Year Out presentation, inviting members of the class of 2018 to share their experiences and network with current students. The panelists included Elda Boulgourjian of Gang, Tyre, Ramer, Brown & Passman; Dan Breslauer of content production firm Fremantle US; Lucas Hawley of Newhouse Porter Hubbard;
Ben Ryzak of Manatt, Phelps & Phillips; and Payvand Vafa of DLA Piper. Graham Fenton '20, co-president of the school's Entertainment Law Association, served as moderator.
Further, as part of the institute’s Supplemental Practical Legal Education program, several alums and their colleagues from leading firms returned to campus to offer presentations. Roey Gilberg ’14 and Cat Zhang ’17 of Sidley Austin LLP presented “From Kickoff to Closing: A Junior Associate's Role in Media and Entertainment M&A Deals"; and Brandon Milostan ’17 and Ryan Webb of Greenberg Glusker presented “One-Stop
Shop: How to Negotiate a Hollywood Shopping Agreement.”
New Copyright Curriculum
Widely recognized as one of the nation’s leading entertainment and intellectual property litigators, Russell Frackman, partner at Mitchell, Silberberg & Knupp, joined UCLA Law to teach the newly inducted Copyright Amicus Legal Clinic. Frackman has deep experience on the topic of music distribution and has represented top talent in film and popular music.
LA Press Freedom Week
In collaboration with the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, The Reporter’s Committee for Freedom of the Press, and the Los Angeles Times, the Ziffren Institute hosted the panel discussion “Cross-Border Legal Threats to Press Freedom,” one of the marquee events for LA Press Freedom Week, in September. Esteemed panelists included Agnés Callamard, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on
Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions who has gained acclaim for her work investigating the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi; Mónica Almeida of El Universo, one of the largest newspapers in Ecuador; Bruce Brown, executive director of the Reporter's Committee for Freedom of the Press and a partner in the Washington office of Baker & Hostetler; and David Kaye, a law professor at UC Irvine and the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of the Right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression. The panel was moderated by Dale Cohen, director of UCLA Law’s Documentary Film Legal Clinic.
Conversations with the Corner Office
This fall, the Ziffren Institute welcomed Cliff Gilbert-Lurie, senior partner at Ziffren Brittenham, as the guest of honor for its Lunch with the Corner Office program. Gilbert-Lurie's wide-ranging practice includes representation of media and software companies, senior executives and top celebrity talent.
Memorial Nimmer Lecture Now Housed in Institute
A fixture at UCLA School of Law since 1987, the Melville B. Nimmer Memorial Lecture is named in honor of the leading light on copyright law who was a professor at UCLA School of Law from 1962 to 1985. The lecture is a prestigious forum for leading scholars in copyright and First Amendment law. The Ziffren Institute hosted the 2019 Melville B. Nimmer Memorial Lecture on November 21, featuring UC Berkeley’s Koret Professor of Law Peter Menell, who is founder and co-director of the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology. Menell presented his lecture, “Copyright and the Digital Revolution: Still Passionately in the Middle After All These Years.”
The Wins Keep Coming
Sam Cate-Gumpert ‘20 was recently awarded a scholarship by the American Bar Association’s Communications Law Forum to attend the forum’s 2020 annual meeting in Austin, Texas. This scholarship goes to two or three law students across the country each year who have an outstanding educational record and an established interest in the practice of media, entertainment and communications law.
Save the Dates!
Please save the dates for the 44th Annual UCLA Entertainment Symposium – March 20-21, 2020 – as we welcome Keynote Speaker Robert Greenblatt, Chairman, WarnerMedia Entertainment and Direct-to-Consumer.
For sponsorship opportunities, please email entertainmentsymposium@law.ucla.edu
Ziffren Institute for Media, Entertainment, Technology and Sports Law
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