Five Partners Again Named to Billboard’s Top Music Lawyers List

Five Latham & Watkins partners have been named to Billboard’s 2022 Top Music Lawyers list: Sy Damle, Andy Gass, Alli Stillman, Jonathan West, and Joe Wetzel. Billboard’s annual list honors “[t]he savviest legal counselors in the business,” who are called upon to advise on familiar contract matters, but also a surging tide of “IPOs, NFTs, Web3, and new ventures in the metaverse.” This is the second consecutive year that these five lawyers have been recognized.

Billboard recognized the group for advising “some of the largest firms and organizations in the music industry, including Live Nation, the National Association of Broadcasters, Meta, Snap, Roblox, and Triller, as well as an increasing number of investors in music assets.” The publication highlighted the firm’s work for Roblox, the online video game platform, when it was sued for copyright infringement by music publishers representing a third of the industry. Latham’s copyright team helped Roblox reach a mutually beneficial industry-wide deal with the National Music Publishers Association, and is continuing to advise Roblox as it grows into one of the most exciting platforms for music consumption.

Damle, Gass, Stillman, and Wetzel – members of Latham’s Connectivity, Privacy, and Information Practice – advise on copyright matters that run the gamut from a quick phone call to talk through a product design question, to developing a commercial strategy for compliance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, to litigating infringement cases in federal court and rate-setting matters in federal agencies.

West – a member of the firm’s Entertainment, Sports & Media Practice – is well recognized for representing industry leading media companies and high-profile entertainers in connection with major asset acquisitions, as well as negotiating personal services agreements and advising on copyright and licensing matters within the music industry.