Johnson & Johnson LLP

Beverly Hills

Entertainment Litigation & Copyright Litigation

The first thing to know about the eight-lawyer entertainment law boutique Johnson & Johnson is that name partners Douglas and Neville Johnson are not related. But, Neville Johnson said, "My name goes first."

Also, he added, "We're both very, very handsome."

Since founding the firm in 2007, the Johnsons have made a name for themselves by taking on big cases, including some that others in the field had avoided. "We're industry leaders when it comes to net profit litigation on motion pictures and television," Neville Johnson said. They also pursue similar cases against record companies.

"We have pioneered class actions against the record companies and the movie studios for unfair accounting practices overall," he added. And the firm is one of the very few to bring class actions against the Hollywood unions for improper practices, he said.

One such case challenged SAG-AFTRA's failure to pay actors and others their share of "foreign levies" that other countries imposed on video rentals and equipment specifically earmarked for performers. The case settled in March 2011, and since then, "hundreds of millions of dollars have been paid out to talent as a result of our work," he said. Osmond v. Screen Actors Guild Inc., BC377780 (L.A. Super. Ct., filed Sept. 18, 2007).

More recently, the Johnsons and their colleagues won a $20.6 million settlement for actors over the age of 65 after the actors' unions' health insurance arms announced that coverage for the senior performers would be canceled. The settlement was approved in August. Asner v. The SAG-AFTRA Health Fund, 2:20-cv-10914 (C.D. Cal., filed Dec. 1, 2020).

Douglas Johnson said the firm began taking on those kinds of cases when the lawyers realized that performers, writers and directors weren't being represented well by their transactional attorneys, who have conflicts of interest opposing the studios and record companies they make deals with. "And if they go against one studio one time, they won't get hired by the other studios as well," he said. "So in that rarefied atmosphere ... we're effective."

The firm also often pursues copyright claims for songwriters and others. In February, it sued Major League Soccer, accusing it and several teams of using hundreds of recordings on social media and websites without licenses. Associated Production Music LLC v. Major League Soccer LLC, 2:23-cv-01173 (C.D. Cal., filed Feb. 16, 2023).

The Johnson firm settled a very similar case last year against the owner of resorts in Vail, Colo. Associated Production Music LLC v. The Vail Corp., 2:21-CV-04799 (C.D. Cal., June 11, 2021).

They also sometimes defend lawsuits. The firm is defending one of the music publishers named in a huge lawsuit that "is essentially ... holding the entire reggaeton musical genre hostage at the moment," said senior counsel Daniel Lifschitz, who Neville Johnson labeled the firm's copyright guru. Defendants include Bad Bunny and many other performers, publishers and companies. Browne v. Donalds, 2:21-cv-02840 (C.D. Cal., filed April 1, 2021).

The plaintiffs are claiming that every song has incorporated the "dem bow" drum beat since the plaintiffs created it in a song called "Fish Market," is infringing their copyright, Lifschitz added. "And so they are suing a couple of hundred artists over several thousand songs."

In the last few years, the firm also has been taking on big cases outside the entertainment field. Recently, senior counsel Melissa Eubanks, who joined the firm in May last year, secured a $4 million wrongful termination settlement for the former president of Illinois' largest community college in Illinois. She also was part of the team that landed a $25 million jury verdict following a two-month environmental contamination insurance coverage trial in Mississippi state court.

-- Don DeBenedictis