THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER 65 MARCH 26, 2020
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R.indie film deal ever by selling worldwide rights to
client Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton live capture
to Disney for $75 million. Rose also spearheaded the
pact for Miranda’s film adaptation of In the Heights
and his directing debut with Tick, Tick Boom.
Elsewhere, Rose closed a rich multiyear overall deal
for The Affair co-creator Sarah Treem with Fox 21
and reps theater-film crossovers including Kenneth
Lonergan and Tony Kushner.
We’ve hit peak content when “We’re there already.”CORPORATE/TECH
Bobby Rosenbloum
Greenberg Traurig
HARVARD LAW SCHOOL
Rosenbloum has been at the fore of the music
industry’s shift to digital over the past two decades.
Lately, that means serving as lead counsel for
TikTok owner ByteDance on content deals, assisting
Spotify with its music licensing agreements and
leading music content deals for Equinox Media and
SoulCycle. He also works with Amazon Studios
and Luminary.
If I could eat only one food forever, it’s “Sushi.”TA LE N T
Gretchen Rush
Hansen Jacobson
UCLA SCHOOL OF LAW
Rush is a magnet for top female talent. She brokered
deals for Jennifer Lawrence to star in Adam
McKay’s Netflix movie Don’t Look Up and for Reese
Witherspoon and Kerry Washington to headline
and produce Hulu’s Little Fires Everywhere. But
her biggest deal of the year was Game of Thrones
creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss’ five-year
overall pact with Netflix. “It was my entire summer,”
says Rush of the negotiation, which involved six
other buyers.
If I could eat only one food forever, it’s “Fries!”CORPORATE
Faiza Saeed
Cravath
HARVARD LAW SCHOOL
After repping Disney in its acquisition of 21st
Century Fox’s major entertainment assets and
Time Warner in its sale to AT&T, Saeed took on
more mega-deals, advising Viacom’s board on the
company’s $30 billion recombination with CBS
Corp. and Hasbro on its $4 billion acquisition of
Entertainment One. She also represented Disney
in its $10.6 billion sale of the Fox Regional Sports
Networks to Sinclair.TA LE N T
Michael Schenkman
Goodman Genow
UC BERKELEY SCHOOL OF LAW
It was a whirlwind year as Schenkman’s firm Bloom
Hergott dissolved with the retirement of Jake
Bloom and Alan Hergott, reconstituted as Goodman
Schenkman, then merged with Stone Genow. “We
received kudos from various members of the com-
munity, including some of our friendly competitors,”
he notes. Meanwhile, he inked Christopher Nolan and
Emma Thomas’ rich deal for Te n e t, and a two-picture
pact with Universal for M. Night Shyamalan.
Hollywood’s 2020 priority “Avoiding self-inflicted
disruption while the world experiences unprec-
edented disruption.”TA LE N T
Ira Schreck
Schreck Rose
COLUMBIA LAW SCHOOL
While his roster includes stars like Kevin Hart, Sarah
Jessica Parker and Ang Lee, it was boosting thecareers of two newcomers that Schreck says were
the “deepest experiences of the past year.” One is
bringing deaf actress Lauren Ridloff (The Walking
Dead) into the Marvel fray in Eternals and the other
was setting up Ali Stroker in the stage production
of Oklahoma!, making her the first actress to use a
wheelchair for mobility on Broadway.
Please reboot The Odd CoupleLITIGATION
Robert Schwartz
Quinn Emanuel
USC GOULD SCHOOL OF LAW
Schwartz scored a win for Elon Musk in December
when a judge ruled the billionaire didn’t defame a
British cave explorer when he called him “pedo guy”
on Twitter. He also helped Kanye West settle with
EMI Publishing after an eight-month battle and is
quietly representing victims of sexual harassment
and abuse. Says Schwartz, “We hold people account-
able, we don’t hold press conferences.”
My biggest challenge now is “Finding time to
goof off.”TA LE N T
P.J. Shapiro
Ziffren Brittenham
USC GOULD SCHOOL OF LAW
TV’s golden age has kept Shapiro busy this year.
He shepherded Fleabag phenom Phoebe Waller-
Bridge’s deal at Amazon and Succession head Jesse
Armstrong’s overall pact at HBO deal. He explains,
“These mega overall deals have essentially shifted
the backend to the front end.” On the features side,
he helped transition John Cena from wrestler to full-
time movie star, with roles in the ninth Fast & Furious
movie and Warner Bros.’ Suicide Squad sequel.
If I could eat only one food forever, it’s “Pad Thai
with a side of pizza and a scoop of ice cream ... and
maybe a slice of butter cake.”TA LE N T
Nina Shaw
Del Shaw
COLUMBIA LAW SCHOOL
Time’s Up co-founder Shaw remains committed to
equitable representation in her day job, too: She
brokered Nia DaCosta’s jump from indie to studio
filmmaking with Candyman, negotiated John Legend
and his banner Get Lifted’s ABC overall deal, and is
helping Oscar winner Regina King expand her talents
with a Netflix multiyear producing pact and her
feature directorial debut One Night in Miami.TA LE N T
Lawrence Shire
Grubman Shire
GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW
Shire guided George Cheeks out of NBC and into
a shiny new role as president and CEO of CBS
Entertainment Group. The veteran NYC lawyer is
also working with Richard Plepler on his new venture,
Eden Productions, and its exclusive deal at Apple.
Shire continues to represent talent including LeBron
James, Drake and Robert De Niro.
Hollywood’s 2020 priority “Keeping
everyone healthy.”CORPORATE
Amy Siegel
O’Melveny & Myers
LOYOLA LAW SCHOOL
Siegel repped ViacomCBS in its deal with beIN
Media to acquire a 49 percent stake in Miramax,
and Univision in its rebranding of its sports network
Univision Deportes as TUDN in its alliance with
Mexico’s Grupo Televisa. She also worked with
Square Enix in deals to adapt video games, such aswe all have a platform. My platform
isn’t as big as those of my clients,
but I support them, speaking pas-
sionately about the things they care
about. I wanted to tell them that
I’m modeling that behavior, too,
or following their lead for those
who are out in the world having
conversations that are sometimes
challenging to have.Would you feel comfortable sharing
your own abortion story with THR?
I was 17 and living in Japan. I had left
college and was seeing the world, and
I became pregnant. I went back to
the U.S. to have an abortion because
in Japan a woman could only have
an abortion through a lot of special
waivers. It was not a hard decision,
because it would have completely
derailed all my professional aspira-
tions and I would have been an unwed
teenage mother without a college
degree. I would have had a very dif-
ficult path to the life that I have now,
and [so] it was not even a question. My
family was supportive.In your legal view, how realistic is it that
Roe v. Wade would be overturned?
It already feels like [abortion access]
has been changed for women who
have even the obstacle of waiting a
day; for someone who has a job where
they can’t take off a day’s work or lose
a day’s wages; for women who have to
travel hours and hours, when many
don’t have cars. Access for all women,
regardless of income, regardless of
location, to have safe abortions is
already dramatically diminished and
it’s horrible. It’s infuriating and it
makes me more passionate to assist
in doing that work.What can the entertainment industry
do to protect abortion rights?
The more the stories that are told on
TV and film destigmatize this choice
and show a wider variety of responses
in storylines when women have
pregnancies they don’t want to carry
to term, the more comfortable people
will be in having these conversa-
tions and understanding why women
have to have control over the choices
around their reproduction.Interview edited for length and clarity.SaeedSchenkmanSchreckSchwartzShapiroShawShireSiegel10fea_lawyers1-17_L [P]{Print}_53606986.indd 65 3/25/20 10:42 AM