News

Bryan Sullivan was featured as a “Top Entertainment Lawyer” in this year’s Entertainment Law issue of the Los Angeles Daily Journal, California’s premier legal publication. Published this week, the exclusive list recognizes 50 leading attorneys who are reshaping litigation and dealmaking in the entertainment industry.

The full article and interview with Bryan Sullivan can be found below:

Crisis management and risk assessment, two of Sullivan’s specialties, came into play as he monitored the threat a pair of female stalkers posed to client Salma Hayek.

“The stalking started in the summer of 2014, but it escalated from the acts of obsessive fans to a potentially very dangerous situation,” Sullivan said, when he learned that the women stalking Hayek had reached out to try to contact the star’s young child. “That’s a huge red flag in threat analysis.”

The next move was to seek a restraining order. To Sullivan’s surprise, one of the accused women appeared at the August hearing in Los Angeles County Superior Court to apologize and ask that she not be the subject of an order.

The judge, not persuaded, ordered both women to stay away for three years from Hayek, her husband and their 7-year-old daughter. “I’ve done my share of restraining orders,” Sullivan said, citing cases involving fans that got too close to clients Miley Cyrus and Kathy Griffin.

His client list also includes Whoopi Goldberg, Julianne Moore, Howie Mandel and a legion of directors, producers and screenwriters. Sullivan also performs the tricky task of managing audits for actors, writers and producers.

“We just settled in arbitration an audit case for a high-profile individual regarding a back end deal in a TV series,” he said, keeping the details under wraps. “Accounting is an exact science when it is just about what comes in and what goes out. But how to classify expenses and revenues can be an art form, and that’s where the litigation falls.”

For Latin Everywhere Inc., a Spanish language streaming service seeking to expand, Sullivan maneuvered to remove a roadblock posed by a former executive who held an equity share in the company.

“No one wanted to invest while those securities were in question,” Sullivan said. “We were able to settle that matter fairly quickly and free up the stock. It did lead to a large new round of financing.”

Source: John Rohmer, Los Angeles Daily Journal