Reader Question: Would a personal lawyer suffice in lieu of an entertainment lawyer?

Mike asks:

Scott,

I know you are not a lawyer and don’t play on on TV, but….

When a producer or manager states that they will only look at material submitted by the screenwriter’s legal representation, would your personal lawyer suffice? Does he/she have to be an entertainment attorney? Does he/she have to be licensed in California?

Thanks in advance.

Mike, you know my “I’m not a lawyer” schtick! Evidently that’s getting old, so I’ll have to come up with something new for future posts.

It’s actually a really good question, one I’m going to forward to Tom Benedek to ask the two managers who will be participating in his upcoming Network Hollywood class (see the next GITS post for info).

While I admire your crafty way of thinking, using a regular lawyer to stand in as a de facto entertainment lawyer at least insofar as submitting material is concerned, my gut feeling is that would not cut it per the producer or manager’s legal stance toward your script.

However you’ll note I italicized the word “legal” stance. There’s also the creative concern which for producers and managers can trump certain legalities. Managers get paid when projects get set up. Producers get paid when projects get made. In both cases, they need material (read: scripts) to do anything. So no matter what they’ve done to protect themselves legally, their more primal default mode is to seek material.

I know when I was a producer at Trailblazer Studios for many years, if a logline slipped through the cracks of our ‘no unsolicited material’ defense shield and I liked it, I would request the script to read.

So my advice: If you don’t have access to an entertainment lawyer, don’t let that dissuade you from targeting managers and producers, and emailing them your logline, asking if you can send them the script.

Remember: It just takes one set of eyeballs to read your script and change your life.