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8December

Entertainment Lawyers Tell All

Fri September 30th 2pm PT / 5pm ET
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30September

The Whole Truth

Entertainment Lawyers Tell All

Fri September 30th 2pm PT / 5pm ET

This online legal workshop was held with prolific Entertainment Lawyers Erika Easter (eMinutes), Erika Canchola (Ramo Law), Nina Ameri (Ameri Law), and Stacey A. Davis (The Law Firm of Stacey A. Davis).

Experts in Entertainment Law answered your questions as they spilled the tea about legal services for filmmakers from inception to distribution. They discussed everything from advising on tax incentives, film financing, and contract drafting to negotiations, protecting intellectual property, and making influential connections. They offered advice on how to create and maintain relationships with the right firms and all the other complexities involved in entertainment law. With support from community partners Chicana Director’s Initiative, Divas With Disabilities Project, and Latino Filmmakers Network.

Details

Date:
September 30, 2023

Details

Date:
September 30, 2023

Panelists

Erika Canchola is an entertainment partner at Ramo Law PC, a minority owned, female led law firm headquartered in Beverly Hills. Her firm provides comprehensive legal services to its clients in the entertainment industry with a specialized focus on representing financiers, producers and production entities in film, television and digital content. Erika optimizes her clients’ financial, legal and business position in the financing, production and exploitation of their content. For over 15 years, Canchola has represented independent and up-and-coming filmmakers and producers, enabling them to bring their stories to life. She regularly handles film financing, corporate formations, trademark and copyright fillings, contract negotiation, production financing and production legal for her clients. Her credit highlights include breakout works such as the 2021 Sundance film Wild Indian, 2020 festival films Four Good Days, Arkansas and Happily, 2019 Golden Globe winner, The Americans, and Skydance’s Grace and Frankie and Foundation. Previous notable credits include the Academy Award winning films Call Me By Your Name and The Disaster Artist. Erika serves as outside production counsel for Skydance Television and is currently advising several producers of short- and long-form content slated for theatrical, television and new media platforms. 

Erika Easter is an attorney at eMinutes, where she has been in practice as a corporate attorney for 14 years. Erika joined eMinutes out of law school in the Los Angeles office. In 2012, Erika moved to New York City where she opened eMinutes’ East Coast office.  During her time at eMinutes, Erika has formed thousands of corporate entities and crafted creative solutions for entertainment and real estate clients by utilizing various corporate entity structures. Erika is a member of California Bar. She received her J.D. from Loyola Law School in Los Angeles and her B.A. from Dartmouth College. 

Nina Ameri took the untraditional path of serving as tax counsel at Nationwide Tax Relief (NTR), a tax controversy firm in Santa Monica. At NTR she handled tax controversies for both individual and business entities before the IRS and FTB. After three years of learning the ins and outs of the IRS and FTB, she became well trained and positioned to use her negotiation skills in the film and television business as an attorney at Abrams Garfinkel Margolis Bergson, LLP. At AGMB, she spent nine years learning the nuts and bolts of the entertainment industry though her involvement in a multitude of transactions ranging from acquisition of intellectual property, production legal on independent films, drafting and negotiating talent agreements, advising clients on copyright and trademark issues, and handling general commercial transactions in various industries. Her diverse background led Ms. Ameri to a partnership at One LLP, a boutique entertainment and intellectual property firm, where she continued her work as an entertainment and IP transactional attorney, before founding her own firm – Ameri Law, PC.

Stacey Davis is an entertainment lawyer representing clients in the film and television industry on a variety of projects including A24’s Minari, The Inspection, and Showing Up. In various producer roles her credits include, Jockey (Sundance 2021), Swan Song (SXSW 2021), Sword of Trust (SXSW, dir. Lynn Shelton; starring Marc Maron), Little Sister (SXSW, written/directed by Zach Clark, starring Addison Timlin, Ally Sheedy, and Peter Hedges, and named by “The New Yorker” as the best film of 2016); 1985 (SXSW, written/directed by Yen Tan, starring Cory Michael Smith, Virginia Madsen, and Michael Chiklis), Through the Glass Darkly (starring Robyn Lively and Shanola Hampton) and Social Animals (starring Noel Wells, Samira Wiley, and Josh Radnor). Stacey is also an accomplished writer and director having produced five short films in the last six years, which have screened at over fifty festivals around the world. Stacey lives in Birmingham, Alabama with her husband and two sons. Stacey has served as a Board Member/Officer for the Sidewalk Film Center + Cinema (The Sidewalk Film Festival) for over ten years and is the immediate past-President of the organization. She also serves on the Board of Directors for Stowe Story Labs. Stacey is a former board member of the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame and Birmingham Festival Theatre.

Event Partners

The Chicana Directors Initiative mission is to create a solid foundation of Latina Directors and Latina DPs and successfully immerse the members into sustainable careers in the entertainment industry with fair representation and equal pay.

The Divas With Disabilities Project is a digital movement and community that is committed to increasing the participation and representation of Black and brown women and girls –DIVAS– Dynamic, Illuminating, Victorious, Achieving Sisters with visible disabilities.

Latino Filmmakers Network’s mission is to connect, inspire, educate and create opportunities for Latinos while promoting diversity and inclusion in the entertainment industry by bridging the gap within the community to unite and present a powerful LatinX voice.