Choosing An Attorney | Wendy Day

Hi guys, Wendy Day here. Hope you're doing well. Okay, there are many different kinds of attorneys out there, just like there are different types of doctors. You know, if you have a problem with your heart, you're going to go to a cardiologist. If you have a problem with your foot, you're going to go to a podiatrist. If you have a problem with one of your bones, you're going to go to an orthopedist. Um, so just like there are different types of doctors, there are different types of attorneys, and it seems like just as many different types. Um, if you're buying a house, you're going to go to a real estate attorney. If you are putting together a corporation, you're going to go to a corporate attorney. So for your music career, there's going to be 3, um, main types of attorneys that you're going to deal with in your career, and hopefully one of them you will never have to deal with. But at the very beginning of your career, you will more than likely want to set up a company, and you may partner with somebody. It's especially if you're an artist or a producer and you want to partner with an investor or somebody that's going to put money into your career. You're going to want to have a corporate attorney, and that corporate attorney is going to set up the company. He's going to do the partnership agreement to say who owns what, who gets what percentage of the income, um, who's going to do what job. So, um, the corporate attorney is also going to ask you a ton of questions in putting together your, um, partnership agreement that will stipulate what happens if you guys decide you don't want to work together anymore. What happens if somebody doesn't do something that they're supposed to do that's stipulated in the contract? So So it's sort of like, um, the attorney will try to figure out exactly what's going to happen if you get divorced in your company, right? That's what a corporate attorney is supposed to do. They take the guesswork out of what happens if your company ceases to exist, or if you guys don't want to partner anymore. And it's important to consider those different aspects so that if it occurs you're not, um, cold-cocked with it, right? That's what a corporate attorney does. A corporate attorney will more than likely, um, bring in a trademark attorney, and that trademark attorney is going to trademark your name, trademark the name of the corporation, which could be the record label or the production company or your publishing company, but they're going to trademark Um, if you're going to sell music, they're going to trademark the name of the company that sells music. If you're an artist and you go by a stage name, they're going to trademark the stage name for you. And if you're going to have a merchandise company, they're going to want to trademark your logo in a clothing line, in fashion, so that you can, um, have t-shirts with your logo or your slogan on it. So, um, all of that will be done by the corporate attorney, who will then of course bring in the trademark attorney, as I mentioned. Um, when you're looking for the corporate attorney, um, any corporate attorney will do. It doesn't necessarily have to be someone who specializes in entertainment. When you start getting into contractual law, um, when you hire a manager, or if you're a manager and you need an agreement, or if you need clearances for side artists, or if you need production agreements. We call them producer decks in the music industry. That's the slang term for the contract that you need with a producer. You're going to have an entertainment attorney, and the entertainment attorney is a very specialized practice of law. So you don't want your corporate attorney or your real estate attorney or your criminal attorney doing entertainment law. You don't want them negotiating agreements. You don't want them creating contracts for you with other folks in the music industry. If your goal is to get a record deal, that would be the person that negotiates it. If you get a distribution deal, that will be the person that looks over the paperwork from the distributor and tells you, you know, yes, it's good, or no, it's not good, or they'll negotiate negotiate it and, um, get you the best deal that you possibly can with the leverage that you have. That is an entertainment attorney. And then the third type of attorney, and this is the one that I hope that you'll never have to deal with, is called a litigator. And the litigator is the person you call if you do business with somebody and they don't pay you, or if somebody breaks a contract and they don't do what they're supposed to do. When they breach the agreement, you're gonna call a litigator. A litigator is the person who sues somebody or who defends you in a lawsuit if you get sued. And like I said, I hope that you never have to deal with a litigator, but if you do, I hope that you have a pit bull of a litigator. You want to make sure that you've got somebody that's very experienced with lawsuits in the music industry, because in the music industry we have a lot of really weird and unique stuff that occurs. We have royalties, we have different types of agreements than just corporate agreements. You know, our agreements deal with people's lives. They don't deal with moving in or out of a house or an apartment. They deal with human beings and the amount of money that you can gain or lose in working with a human being. You know, and human beings are frail, so, and they're emotional beings, so it's a very specialized discipline. For me, the best way that I have found attorneys is I've asked around to find out, you know, who are the corporate attorneys that have done corporate, you know, that have created corporations for my friends, people that I know. The SBA has referrals that they can make to corporate attorneys. I prefer to utilize the folks that people I know have had work for them and are very happy with the results that they've had. In terms of, I choose my own trademark attorneys. I don't have a corporate lawyer or an entertainment lawyer who refers a trademark attorney, and I utilize a handful of trademark attorneys that I know have done good work. They have been able to register trademarks. I remember one of the most exciting days of my career was when I was able to get Trouble's stage name trademarked. It was, it was very special because it's such a generic word, you know. If you have a name that's really intricate, you know, it's a little bit easier to trademark, or if your name is your name, like Kendrick Lamar, it's a little bit easier to trademark. But when you've got a generic word or generic term, it's a little bit more challenging because there may be other artists out there that have already trademarked it. And the way that trademark law works, you could be rapping with a name since you were 12, and you could be in your 20s, but if somebody else has used that name in commerce first, they win. All they have to do is prove that they've put out music or uploaded music to the internet, or they've done a show where they've gotten paid, any type of commerce, then they get to use the name. And, you know, in hip-hop, we've got some, um, history of artists that haven't been able to use their names after they've already gone down the path to build their brand. Um, Biggie Smalls, who's who had to change his name to Notorious B.I.G. is a great example. Common Sense, a rapper who had to change his name to Common, you know, after his label had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars, maybe even millions of dollars, to build his brand because there was a reggae act out of California called Common Sense and they weren't willing to give up the name. They didn't want to be bought out, they wanted to keep their name, you know. So, um, I just believe that in, in using a trademark attorney, it's better to use one that's a little bit familiar with music so that they understand the difference between a rock artist and a rap artist. You know, to most trademark attorneys, if you're dealing with widgets and the name is already taken, that's it, there's, there's no dispute. But in the music industry, you know, if there is an old rock group that is no longer in business that's using the name you want to use as a rapper or as a producer, you would like to have somebody that has already understood how to best handle that argument with the trademark office to see if you can keep your name. The way that I find entertainment attorneys, or the best way that I suggest you find an entertainment attorney, is to do some research and find out, you know, which artists have already used entertainment attorneys that are good. If your goal is to get a record deal, then you're going to want to have an entertainment attorney that's done a shit ton of record negotiations. They want to be, you know, you want somebody that's skilled in that. If you're an independent artist and you don't care about signing to a label, you're going to want an attorney that's skilled in dealing with an independent label and knows what your needs are and how to best serve those needs. And the way that, that I suggest you do that is to do research, you know, find out who are the best attorneys in the music business. And, and the truth is the bulk of them are in New York and LA. So even if you live in Iowa or Houston or Reno, Nevada, you're going to want to have an attorney that is based where the center of the music businesses, and for rap, that's mostly New York and LA. We do have attorneys in Miami, we do have attorneys in Houston, we do have attorneys in Atlanta, so, and Chicago. It's up to you whether you would prefer to have somebody from a smaller city that may charge a little bit less, or whether you want to deal with a more powerful pit bull type attorney that has experience doing a lot of the type of deals that you want to do. And most of the attorneys that are well-versed just happen to be in New York and LA. It's just the nature of the music business because those are the centers of the music business for the most part. And in terms of a litigator, it depends on what your topic is. If you're suing for copyright infringement, or if you're suing because somebody stole your beat, or or if somebody broke a contract, you're going to want to have a litigator that has experience in those areas and that has won a lot of cases. Um, one of the most frustrating and costly things for me, um, when I was suing, um, Cash Money was they had an attorney that wasn't very knowledgeable about the music industry. He wasn't very savvy, and it burned a lot of legal hours with my attorney because my attorney was steady trying to explain to him how the music industry works as well as what our position was in terms of the lawsuit. I happened to choose an attorney— I probably met with 30 attorneys in New York and LA before I chose the one that I hired. I wanted somebody that wasn't going to be intimidated. At the time, of my lawsuit. These guys were, you know, the top record company in the country. They were selling more records than anybody else, and I wanted to make sure that I had an attorney that I could trust that wouldn't want to sell me out because he would want to do business with that label in the future. So there were a lot of things that were kind of going through my extremely cynical brain as at that point in time. Um, I also wanted somebody that I could afford, and the attorney that I chose was kind of amazing because he felt that, you know, I had a really good case. So rather than, um, take me on as a client on contingency, which means he would get paid a third of the money on the back end, he suggested that I pay him on an hourly rate because it was silly for him to only put in a small amount of hours and then, you know, receive a third of the money on the back end. So he suggested that I pay him on an hourly basis as long as I could, and it actually— he was right, it actually worked out to my advantage. I ended up spending $12,000 in legal fees in order to sue but if I had done it on contingency, then he would have probably made somewhere around $50,000 or so. So it was much better for me to pay him on an hourly rate. So all that to say that a, a lawyer is an extremely important part of your team. I know that a lot of you guys feel that you shouldn't pay an attorney for contracts, that you can just get blank contracts off the internet, or you can get one of your friends to give you a template. But understand this about contracts, and I'm not telling you not to do that because I understand that, you know, money can be tight. But understand that a contract has value when something goes wrong, and an agreement is exactly that. It's an agreement between two people. There is no such thing as a standard contract. There is no such thing as a standard contract. Each person in a negotiation has leverage, and sometimes this person has a lot of leverage, and sometimes that person has a lot of leverage. And you don't want to get a template from a new artist that doesn't have a lot of leverage if indeed you have a shit ton of leverage. And on the flip side, you don't want to come to somebody asking for something crazy in your deal because you were dealing with somebody that was getting a million hits on their Instagram or, you know, on their SoundCloud or their YouTube, and you're in the exact opposite position. You have no leverage, but you're coming in with a template where you have a shit ton of leverage, and now you're pissing somebody off because you're asking too much. And again, a negotiation is, you know, in a perfect world, it's an agreement between two people where they each win. If you're not both winning in a negotiation, it doesn't make sense to have a deal with somebody. If they're not making money and you're not making money, then you're just both going to be really unhappy after about a year to a year and a half. And most contracts last— in the music industry anyway— most contracts last hella longer than that. So, um, have a great attorney. Make sure you pay them. Um, Get contracts that are unique to you. If it's a contract that you're going to use a lot, maybe get a template for you for the position you're in. This is mostly for producers that want to give contracts to different artists that are of similar stature. You know, maybe your attorney can write the perfect contract for you, you know, um, and then as you grow in your career, you can get a little bit more demanding in your contract, and your lawyer will know how to advise you and give give you great advice on moving forward. But your attorney is a really key part of your team. Um, I would definitely, um, interview a lot of them. If they're not willing to meet with you for free for the first meeting so that you can kind of feel them out and see if it's somebody that you like, um, then that's not the attorney for you. You want to make sure that that first meeting is free so that you can kind of feel them out and see You know, is this guy a jerk? Does he make time for me? Is he somebody that I feel comfortable with telling all my business to? Is this somebody that will take my calls when I call him or her? You know, will they be, um, kind, you know, or, or are they just kind of a jerk that you wouldn't want to deal with? Trust your gut on this. But, you know, meet with, meet with quite a few, and, and after about your third or fourth meeting with, you know, third or fourth with different attorneys, you're gonna get a feel for the type of people they are, and you're gonna be able to read them pretty quickly when you sit down in a meeting, and you're gonna know who you're comfortable with and who you're not. And as long as you're meeting with people that are very skilled and they're all, you know, of equal ability, then it's just a matter of choosing the one that you feel the most comfortable with. And somebody that you're willing to give your hard-earned money to. So there you have it. Oh, one more thing. In terms of paying an entertainment attorney, there are two ways that entertainment attorneys get paid, and it's kind of up to you which you prefer. Um, you can pay them by the hour, or you can pay them a percentage of your income. And the ones that get paid by the hour, and they get anywhere from $275 on the low end to about $800 an hour on the high end, you know, for the more, um, advanced, well-known pitbull-type attorneys, as you'll often hear me call them. Um, but for those of you that don't have a lot of money, you may want to work out a deal where— and this works more for people that are shopping deals or for producers that are placing tracks already with established artists— you may want to give up 5% or 10% of your income so that you don't have to pay an hourly rate if you don't have the money to spend up front. So, they're the two ways that attorneys get paid. For the litigators, and again, I hope you never have to use one, but they get paid hourly or they get paid on contingency, which is anywhere from a third to a half of the award that you get when you win. They're taking a risk because if you don't win your case, then they don't get paid. They may ask you for some money for expenses while they're taking that risk and working on your case. But, and then trademark attorneys get paid basically either a flat fee or an hourly rate. And corporate attorneys the same. They'll either do the paperwork for you, the incorporation and the partnership agreement for a flat rate or they will charge you an hourly rate. But remember, every time you send an email to your lawyer or pick up the phone to call them, you're on the clock. And most attorneys, um, charge in increments of 15 minutes. So even if you call them real quick and you're only on the phone for 5 minutes, you're gonna pay for, um, a quarter of an hour. Okay guys, thanks for paying attention to this. Thanks for making it this far. Get yourselves a great attorney. Um, with no matter what you're doing. And tune in, I drop these videos every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 11 AM, and then I go live every Wednesday night at 7 PM Eastern Standard Time to answer your questions. Okay guys, take care. See you at the top.