How to Choose an Entertainment Lawyer: Everything You Need to Know

Statistics for 2023 show that 5,554,935 people are employed in the entertainment industry. This industry is expected to see a growth of 9.6% over the course of 2023.

If you are going into this industry, you need to choose an entertainment lawyer. This is very important for making sure you are protected in this career path.

Many people enter the entertainment industry without having legal representation. This can be a big mistake, especially in specific entertainment areas.

Keep reading to find out more about how to choose an entertainment lawyer.

Table of Contents

Have Several Options

When you’re looking for a lawyer for entertainment contracts, you need several options. There are plenty of options for lawyers online that are easy to look into.

You should create a list of 5 to 10 lawyers that you may be interested in hiring. As you do more in-depth research, you will most likely find reasons to take options off.

It is important that you do not jump into making any decisions too fast. There are plenty of options out there, and there is no reason to rush and choose the first lawyer you find.

Expertise

Talking to your lawyer is going to be something that you often do after you have hired someone. You want to find someone who is going to have experience in your area.

Lawyers are going to have different specialties that they may have done more work on. It is always best to find a lawyer who has a lot of expertise in the area that you need.

You also want to look for a lawyer that has plenty of experience. The longer they have been doing this, the more reliable their work is going to be.

Lawyers who have been in the business longer also have better connections. They will have more references and a longer reach within the entertainment industry.

Affordability

Comparing lawyer fees is something that you need to carefully do when making your decision. You will most likely see a variety of lawyer fees between your available options.

You do not want to immediately go for the cheapest option available. This may indicate that that lawyer is not as high-quality as you are looking for.

Keep in mind that very high fees also do not indicate a good lawyer. That is why you should not be sure decision purely off of how much that lawyer will charge.

You should have created a budget for yourself before looking at your options for lawyers. This will help you to know who you can look into and who is too far out of your budget.

Online Reviews

Another thing you should do is start reading online reviews. These reviews are very beneficial and help to give you a perspective of that lawyer.

These reviews will be written by people who have directly worked with those lawyers. This can help to give you a better idea of their work and how they interact with clients.

Expect to find a variety of positive and negative reviews when doing your research. This is normal since there are always going to be a few unhappy clients in the bunch.

But you should keep an eye out for any repeat negative reviews with the same issue. You want to find a lawyer with a good reputation and a long list of positive reviews.

This is also a good time to check for references if they are available. If you are communicating with a potential lawyer, you can request these references.

Doing this will allow you to speak to those past clients directly. This is a great time to ask any questions that you have to better understand how that lawyer works.

Conflicts of Interest

When you’re entering the entertainment industry, you need to be careful about lawyers. You want to choose an entertainment lawyer that has your best interest.

The last thing you want to do is find a lawyer that has a conflict of interest. This usually means that the lawyer represents someone else that you may be up against.

If you are joining the music industry, you wouldn’t want a lawyer that represents other musicians. This would be a conflict of interest since that would be your competition.

This is something that you need to specifically look for with entertainment lawyers. You can also ask them about this to find out what kind of people they represent.

If you want to hire a high-quality lawyer, you can find options by clicking this link https://www.axiomlaw.com/industries/media.

Do Interviews

The last step in this process should include doing interviews. You want to meet potential lawyers face-to-face to see what they are like.

You have most likely already communicated with them online or by phone. But having an actual interview is very important as getting an understanding of who they are as a person.

Finding the right entertainment lawyer should also include how you interact with them. You want to choose someone that you get along with and who understands you.

This is something that you will want to do once you have a very small number of potential lawyers.