It was blockbuster news when Peter Nelson '79 settled the lawsuit brought by his client, Hollywood heavyweight Peter Jackson, against New Line Cinema, the Time Warner subsidiary that financed and distributed the director's Oscar-winning Lord of the Rings films.
"It's a high-profile case because the Lord of the Rings films are three of the most successful of all time. The movies are so beloved and generated so much revenue that the case stirred a lot of public attention," says Nelson, who in 2008 hung out a shingle with George Davis and Mark Wetzstein at Nelson Davis Wetzstein, a Santa Monica firm that represents the upper echelon of Hollywood talent.
Terms of the 2007 Jackson settlement have not been released. The case involved "chasing a portion of the profits that Jackson was entitled to and that the studio failed to pay him," says Nelson, who also fashioned the groundbreaking deal that green-lighted Jackson to co-write, direct, and produce the three movies.
The world of entertainment has held lifelong appeal for Nelson. "I was the kid in the neighborhood who would invite other kids over to have a show," he says, "and I was always the master of ceremonies." His love for show business resurfaced at Hastings, where in addition to ranking among the top five percent of his class after his first year and serving as a Hastings Law Journal editor, he twice was emcee of The Hastings Law Revue, the law school's talent show. Nelson still fondly recalls seminars with Roger Traynor, retired chief justice of the California Supreme Court, and Arthur Goldberg, retired U.S. Supreme Court justice. "I owe my legal mind largely to Hastings' wonderful professors," he says.
In addition to negotiating Jackson's deals for the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Nelson also facilitated director Andrew Adamson's deal for The Chronicles of Narnia and actor David Duchovny's X-Files and Californication pacts. "I am fascinated by what I do every day," says Nelson. "My clients are some of the smartest and most entertaining people in the world. It's a pleasure to contribute my legal and business training to their success."
To learn why the saga of Peter Nelson's work for director Peter Jackson could be subtitled "The Never-Ending Story," click here.
To read about Nelson's 30-year tradition of annual wilderness adventures with three other members of the Class of '79, click here.
If you can take one lesson from the prolific career of Fred Horowitz '75, it's this—dead men and busy arbitrators tell roughly the same number of tales.
Operating out of his Santa Monica office, Horowitz has heard cases of disputes between baseball players and their teams, and Hollywood directors and their guild, and has traveled to Toronto to settle an NHL contract dispute in 48 hours. But if you're looking for names to go along with these anecdotes, you're out of luck.
"Fred Horowitz isn't even my real name," jokes the ever-discreet Horowitz, who has more than three decades of labor and employment law experience, including the past 21 years as a full-time arbitrator and mediator.
Horowitz traces his career back to the class on labor law he took at Hastings with Professor Joseph Grodin. The subject matter instantly sparked for Horowitz. "When you deal with an employee's or a company's problems, you can get your hands around the issues," he says. "And in this field, you can make a big difference as a lawyer."
One of Horowitz's highest-profile cases was 2006's bitter dispute between pilots and Delta Airlines. Nine days of proceedings filled the ballrooms of the Marriott and Grand Hyatt hotels in Washington, D.C. Yet whenever members of the media sought comment from the arbitration panel, they were stonewalled. For an experienced arbitrator like Horowitz, talking publicly about hard-fought disputes is simply not an option.
"We're in an odd profession," muses Horowitz, whose calendar is always booked well in advance. "We tick people off for a living and then hope they'll hire us again."