Mitchell A. Kamin

As co-chair of Covington’s communications and media industry practice group, Kamin typically represents major companies in the film, television, music and sports industries.

So for what he described as his most exciting recent case, he was “the media guy” on a large team representing TikTok challenging President Donald Trump’s executive order banning the social media platform. Nine days after filing suit, the team won an injunction blocking the order. TikTok Inc. v. Trump, 490 F. Supp. 3d 73 (D.D.C., Sept. 27, 2020).

“It was so intense, so much work and such an immediate outcome,” he said. “I was really pleased to be part of that effort.”

A busy part of his practice in the last few years has been representing studios and television networks in litigation over how much cable systems and streaming services pay them to carry their content. “It’s a really interesting area and very important to our clients,” he said.

Other media work includes co-leading a team representing all the major music labels and publishers in lawsuits accusing internet service providers of allowing their subscribers to repeatedly pirate the clients’ music.

On the sports side of his practice, Kamin is the primary outside litigator nationally for the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee. Lately, that means overseeing a team representing the committee in roughly 500 lawsuits from women gymnasts against convicted sex offender Larry Nassar. Those cases have been in mediation for about two years, he said.

The team won an important victory this spring in a similar case when the state Supreme Court ruled that the USOPC was not liable for the harm caused by a coach working under taekwondo’s governing body. “Being an umbrella organization doesn’t automatically create liability,” Kamin said about the decision. Brown v. USA Taekwondo, 2021 DJDAR 3037 (Cal., decided April 1, 2021).

Kamin also co-chairs Covington’s commercial litigation group, so his caseload extends well beyond entertainment. Currently, he is lead counsel for a chain of hospitals claiming that Kaiser owes it about $400 million for care given Kaiser members. Los Robles Regional Medical Center v. Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, RG17880285 (Ala. Super. Ct., filed Oct. 26, 2017).

Previously head of Bet Tzedek Legal Services, Kamin also takes on many pro bono cases. Lately, he leads a team representing two Louisiana prisoners convicted by nonunanimous juries who are applying for sentence reductions.

— Don DeBenedictis