The firm is pleased to announce that Lisa Alter, James Kendrick, Katie Baron, and Joyce Dollinger will appear in the 2026 edition of “The Best Lawyers in America,” one of the oldest and most respected guides to the legal profession. The selections are based on a comprehensive peer-review process that captures the consensus opinion of leading lawyers regarding the professional abilities of colleagues within common legal practices and geographical areas. Lisa, James, Katie, and Joyce are honored for their outstanding work in the practice areas of Copyright Law and Entertainment Law - Music.

Additionally, “Best Lawyers in America” named Jaclyn Felber and Madison Smiley to its 2026 “Ones to Watch” list for Entertainment and Sports Law and Intellectual Property Law.

The firm is pleased to announce that Lisa Alter and Katie Baron were named in Variety’s “Music Legal Elite Report” for 2025. The second annual list highlights the top attorneys “rocking the biz.”

Lisa and Katie were recognized for their work closing catalog deals for clients including Iconic Music Group (RZA, Rod Stewart), Influence Media Partners (DJ Khaled, Enrique Iglesias, Blake Shelton, Future, Jesse Frasure, Logic), and Primary Wave (the Notorious B.I.G., Ramones), which led them to secure over $880 million in transactions this year.

“Music is one of the last things to be impacted by inflation or depression,” Lisa tells Variety, adding that despite the firm’s massive success, a multitude of complexities can arise when dealing with catalog sales, including estate and will issues.

“Sometimes there are complications, because it requires doing diligence into chain of title that involves the estate,” she explains. “Sometimes there is no will and you have to deal with what happened with letters of administration. It can definitely add multilayers of complexity.”

To read Lisa and Katie’s profile and the full issue, click below.

Music Legal Elite 2025: Meet the Attorneys Behind the Top Stars, Big Deals and Complex Cases Rocking the Biz from AI and Beyonce to Shaboozey and ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic

Lisa Alter recently weighed in on former U.S. Copyright Office Director Shira Perlmutter’s abrupt termination in The Hollywood Reporter. In the article, titled “Trump May Hurt Hollywood With Remake of Copyright Office,” Lisa delves into the firing of Perlmutter, which occurred immediately after the office released a report on using copyrighted works to train AI models, pushing back on the fair use loophole. 

“The concern that this represents a reprioritization of creators and content developers is very real,” Lisa tells THR of Perlmutter’s removal.

Lisa adds that her termination “suggests an unprecedented break from the decades-long nonpartisan nature of the copyright office,” which could have concerning implications for the first amendment rights of artists and content creators, given that the office could potentially censor certain material by denying copyright protections.

“Shira Perlmutter was a consummate intellectual property scholar, that’s what she did,” Lisa continues. “And if the Library of Congress and Copyright Office are controlled by a right-wing political viewpoint instead, who says copyright protections wouldn’t be denied from material that’s not deemed to be appropriate by the current administration?”

Read the full article in The Hollywood Reporter.

Influence Media has announced the creation of two new joint ventures with DJ Khaled, involving We The Best Music Group, the record label, publisher and production company he founded. The deal also involves the acquisition of the recording and publishing rights to DJ Khaled’s catalog in partnership with We The Best.

Primary Wave announced that it partnered with The Notorious B.I.G.‘s estate to acquire a stake in the Brooklyn rapper’s music publishing and recordings, as well as certain name, image and likeness rights. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.