Handel appointed Adjunct Professor at UCLA School of Law to teach entertainment unions & guilds course

On a personal note, I've been appointed as an Adjunct Professor at UCLA School of Law. I'll be teaching a course on entertainment unions and guilds starting in January. I also continue as of counsel at TroyGould.

Below and attached is the press release from TroyGould.

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TroyGould’s Jonathan Handel Becomes Adjunct Professor at UCLA School of Law

Entertainment and Media Law and Policy Class to Focus on Unions and Guilds

LOS ANGELES – October 1, 2009 – Jonathan Handel, of counsel and member of TroyGould’s Entertainment, Sports and Media Department, has become an adjunct professor at the UCLA School of Law. He begins teaching a semester-long class on entertainment unions and guilds in January 2010 and will continue to represent clients at TroyGould.

Handel’s course focuses on legal analysis along with discussions of union history, policy and politics in order to illuminate the abstract language of guild contracts. Students will review topics ranging from on-screen and advertising credits to creative control, residual compensation, arbitration, strikes and stalemates, and new media.

“Understanding the role of Hollywood guilds and unions is critical to comprehending the state and direction of the entertainment industry as a whole,” says Handel, former associate counsel with the Writers Guild of America. “This is particularly true as a result of new media platforms such as the Internet and mobile devices, which promise to complicate Hollywood labor relations for years to come.”

Recent news events have made the course more timely and necessary than ever. Handel will specifically spotlight the 2007-2009 Hollywood labor turmoil that consumed the Writers Guild of America (WGA), Directors Guild of America (DGA), Screen Actors Guild (SAG), American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA), and IATSE and the Teamsters, the unions that represents most ”below-the-line” workers.

Well known in the industry, Handel has been interviewed hundreds of times by local, national and international television, radio, print and online media outlets about entertainment, new media and Hollywood union issues. He has written articles on the conflict between content and technology companies and on trademarking movie titles. Handel has been a participant and panelist at various conferences and presentations, including those hosted by the Beverly Hills Bar Association and by Vanderbilt Law School. He was named one of the top 100 lawyers in California in 2008 and a Southern California Super Lawyer in 2006 and 2007.

In 2009, Handel published a short book titled “How to Write LOI's and Term Sheets,” and will be publishing his new book ”Hollywood on Strike!” later this year. His op-ed pieces have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the Daily Journal, and the Los Angeles Business Journal. Handel is also a prolific writer for blogs such as the Huffington Post, for which he has written more than 100 articles, and for his own labor and new media law blog, “Digital Media Law” (http://www.jhandel.com), where he has posted about 250 articles on the latest news in the law and business of digital media, traditional entertainment, intellectual property and technology.

Handel earned his Juris Doctor cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1990 where he was an editor for the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review, and his AB magna cum laude from Harvard College in Applied Math and Computer Science. After graduating law school, he clerked on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, and has practiced law in Los Angeles since then.

About TroyGould

TroyGould is a Los Angeles law firm founded in 1970. Beginning with an early focus on corporate and securities law, the firm's practice now covers a broad range of business transactions, litigation, and legal counseling, with an emphasis in the areas of corporate finance, mergers and acquisitions, real estate, financial services, entertainment, sports, employment, tax, and competitive business practices.