You built the talent.
Now own everything it creates.
The deals happen fast. The contracts are dense. The masters, the publishing, the brand, the likeness, all of it is on the table from your very first signature. We are the legal partner who reads what you are signing, protects what you are building, and moves at industry speed without skipping a line.
Most artists do not lose their careers. They sign them away.
The masters get traded for an advance. The publishing splits get explained in the studio at 2 AM. The brand name nobody trademarked becomes someone else's LLC. The likeness gets used in an ad nobody approved. By the time it is clear what happened, the leverage is gone, and lawyers cost a lot more when they are fixing something than when they are preventing it.
We work with creative professionals at every stage: emerging artists with their first real deal, established acts negotiating their next contract, production companies setting up the next project. The work is strategic, the counsel is direct, and the goal is always the same. Everything you create stays legally yours until you decide otherwise.
Three things every artist should have before signing anything.
- A name, brand, and likeness that are legally yours on paper
- A contract reviewed by an attorney before, not after, you sign it
- A business structure that protects what you are building from what could go wrong
What creatives lose when they
move without legal infrastructure.
Signing away your masters.
Label and distribution contracts routinely include work-for-hire clauses and IP assignments that transfer ownership of your music. Without an attorney reviewing before you sign, you could be giving away the rights to everything you create, permanently.
Getting locked into bad deals.
Management, agency, and representation contracts can bind you for years with unfavorable commission structures, vague termination clauses, and exclusivity provisions that block other opportunities. What looks like a big break can become a legal trap.
Losing your name and image.
Your stage name, your likeness, your brand. Without trademark registration and right of publicity protections in place, others can use your identity commercially. Building a career on an unprotected name is building on someone else's potential property.
Leaving your catalog unplanned.
A music catalog, a film library, a podcast archive, a book backlist. These are assets with real financial value. Without an estate plan, they have no designated heir, no management structure, and no protection after you are gone. Legacy requires legal intention.
Find your path forward.
Every creative discipline has its own legal terrain. Pick the one closest to how you work, what you create, and what is at stake.
Your name. Your masters. Your publishing. Protected before the deal gets signed.
Where We Work- Trademark for stage name and brand
- Label, producer, and publishing contracts
- Catalog protection and licensing strategy
- Co-writer splits and royalty agreements
- Music business entity setup
- Sync licensing and master use agreements
Your name, your image, your likeness. Locked down before anyone monetizes them.
Where We Work- Talent representation and agency review
- Studio, network, and indie deal review
- AI and likeness rights protection
- Voiceover and motion capture agreements
- Loan-out corporation setup
- Actor Counsel Retainer for career professionals
Agency contracts. Image rights. Brand campaigns. Read them like a lawyer would, because one did.
Where We Work- Mother agency and booking agency review
- Image usage windows and territory rights
- Brand campaign and endorsement deals
- Cosmetics and skincare endorsement
- Model Counsel Retainer for career professionals
- Unpaid shoot recovery and pre-litigation
You wrote it. Make sure you still own it, across every format and every generation.
Where We Work- Literary agency and publishing agreements
- Rights reversion and backlist recovery
- Audio, foreign, film/TV, and subsidiary rights
- AI training opt-out language
- Ghostwriting and collaboration agreements
- Author Counsel Retainer for career authors
Your name, image, and likeness are the deal. Protect them across NCAA, state, and school policy.
Where We Work- NIL contract review across three frameworks
- Eligibility mapping and compliance
- Collective, brand, and endorsement deals
- Trademark protection for athlete brand
- NIL Counsel Retainer for career athletes
- Parent and guardian coordination for minors
Legal services built for
the serious creative professional.
Contract Review and Drafting
Know Before You SignLabel deals, management agreements, licensing contracts, sponsorships, collaboration agreements. We review every contract before you sign and draft custom agreements built for your specific situation.
Book a Session →Trademark and IP Protection
Own Your Name and WorkTrademark your stage name, logo, and brand. Register your creative works for copyright protection. Build the legal ownership structure around your catalog, content, and identity before someone else does.
Book a Session →Rights Management and Recovery
Get What You Signed Away BackReversion analysis, backlist and catalog audits, image rights recovery, and pre-litigation demand work for unpaid royalties, residuals, and image usage. Not every bad contract is permanent.
Book a Session →Business Formation
Separate the Art from the LiabilityYou are not your business. LLC and corporate structure separates your personal assets from your professional liability, sets up proper income channels, and positions your creative enterprise for growth, partnerships, and investment.
Book a Session →Estate Planning for Creatives
Protect Your Catalog and LegacyYour catalog, your royalties, your brand, your masters. These are assets. Our estate planning services for creative professionals (Florida residents only) ensure your life's work has a clear, legally protected path forward.
Explore Estate Planning →Negotiation Representation
We Handle the TableBeyond contract review, we can engage directly with opposing counsel, agents, managers, or business affairs departments to negotiate deals on your behalf. Deal-specific pricing set in your Strategy Session.
Book a Session →The Entertainment Counsel Retainer.
This is not a bulk-discount package. It is a counsel relationship. When your career moves at industry speed, you need an attorney who already knows your deals, your catalog, and your priorities before the next contract lands. The Entertainment Counsel Retainer is annual counsel for working creative professionals across every discipline SLG serves.
What the retainer includes:
- Priority scheduling for all incoming contracts and offers
- Quarterly career and portfolio review sessions
- Direct attorney email access, no gatekeeping
- Unlimited brief questions under 15 minutes each
- Right of first review on any deal within 24 business hours
- Five (5) full contract reviews per calendar year
- Retainer-client rates on all additional reviews beyond the included five
- Coordination with your agent, manager, or business manager as needed
- Annual rights audit specific to your discipline
Entertainment law is not general business law.
Different contracts. Different leverage. Different stakes. Hiring a general corporate attorney to review an entertainment deal is asking someone to do work they were not trained for. They read the same textbooks, but only one of them does this for a living.
The Speed
Industry deals close in days, not weeks. The label wants the masters by Friday. The publisher wants signature before the option expires. A general attorney needs two weeks to review and revert. That is not how this business works, and waiting for it costs deals.
The Specificity
Royalty splits. Work-for-hire. NIL rights. Master ownership versus publishing rights. Sync licenses. Sponsorship FTC compliance. AI likeness grants. These are not contract clauses. They are industry-specific legal frameworks that take years of practice to navigate. Either your attorney already knows the difference between a 360 deal and a distribution deal, or your career becomes the classroom.
The Stakes
A bad deal at 22 compounds for forty years. The masters you signed away do not come back. The trademark you did not file gets claimed by someone else. The likeness clause buried on page 14 of the contract becomes the reason your face is in an ad you never approved. We work at the front of the deal, so none of that gets to happen.
What every entertainment engagement includes.
Regardless of which path fits your career, every SLG entertainment client gets the full service standard.
Counsel Who Speaks the Language
Attorney Stokes works in the actual mechanics of the industry: masters versus publishing, flat fees versus points, work-for-hire versus assignment, sync versus master use. The conversations move quickly because everyone in the room already knows what we are talking about.
Brand Protection as Strategy
Your name, your handle, your show, your production company. These are assets. We treat them like assets, not afterthoughts. Every entertainment engagement includes trademark strategy because the IP is what compounds over the long term.
Contract Review on Industry Time
Priority turnaround for active clients. Direct attorney access when the clock is ticking on a signature. We do not make you wait three weeks for redlines on a deal that has to close in five days.
Live Matter Tracking
Every milestone, every status update, every document. Accessible from your phone through your secure client portal. The "just checking in" email is replaced with real-time visibility into your matter.
The Discretion You Expected
What we know stays between us. Your contracts, your strategy, your deals. Handled with the discretion this work requires. Confidentiality is not a feature here. It is the floor.
A Legal Partner Who Scales With You
The first matter is rarely the last. SLG entertainment clients get an attorney positioned to scale with the career, from the first trademark filing to the next major deal, with one set of files and one continuous strategy.
What entertainment clients ask us
before they book.
I have been offered a record deal or management contract. Should I sign?
Not without having an attorney review it first. Entertainment contracts, especially label, management, and distribution agreements, are designed to protect the other party, not you. Key issues include IP ownership clauses, royalty structures, term lengths, exclusivity provisions, and termination rights. We review the contract, explain exactly what you are agreeing to, and tell you what to push back on before you sign anything.
Do I need a trademark if I am an artist, not a business?
Yes, and the sooner the better. Your stage name, your brand, your logo, your catchphrases. These are the assets your career is built on. If you do not trademark them, someone else can. Artists lose their names to opportunists who registered first. A trademark is how you legally establish that your name is yours and back it up in court if you ever need to.
What is the difference between copyright and trademark for a creative?
Copyright protects the creative work itself: your songs, your recordings, your videos, your writing, your book. It exists automatically when you create something, but registration strengthens your ability to enforce it and pursue damages. Trademark protects the brand identity: your name, logo, and commercial identity. Most serious creative professionals need both. We help you understand which applies to what and build the right protection strategy for your specific situation.
Can you work with clients outside Florida?
Yes. Trademark, copyright, contract review, and business formation work nationwide. Attorney Stokes is licensed in Florida, and matters governed by another state's law (California, New York, and Georgia are common in entertainment) may be handled directly, may involve local co-counsel, or may be scoped to Florida-based aspects of the deal, depending on the specifics. Estate planning services are Florida residents only.
I am early in my career. Is this overkill?
It is the opposite. The decisions made early, what name you use, what you sign, how you structure your business, are the ones that compound. Protecting a career is cheap at the beginning, expensive in the middle, and sometimes impossible at the end. We meet artists exactly where they are, at any stage.
What happens in an Entertainment Law Strategy Session?
This is a diagnostic session, not a contract review. In one focused hour, we assess your career position, identify risks in any deals you are considering, and recommend the right engagement structure for what you actually need. If you have a contract on the table, we will look at it together at a high level and flag concerns, but the line-by-line negotiation work happens under a separate engagement. If you engage the Firm within 14 days, the $500 fee credits in full toward your first flat-fee deliverable or annual retainer.
If your career lives on streams, posts, and feeds, we have a different page for you.
Streamers, YouTubers, TikTokers, podcasters, and Instagram creators all have their own legal terrain: handle protection, brand deals, sponsorship contracts, and the business infrastructure to monetize an audience. We cover that under our Creators practice.
Your talent built this.
Legal strategy makes sure you keep it.
Start with a $500 Strategy Session. One focused hour with Attorney Stokes to assess your legal situation, review your exposure at a high level, and recommend the exact engagement that fits your career.
Schedule a Strategy Session $500 · 1 Hour · Zoom · By Appointment