Attorney Jay MacIntosh
The Aesthetics Of Justice
By Anthony Calderon

 A good Entertainment Lawyer is hard to find for more than a few reasons. Two facts that immediately come to mind are: (1) Most people have no idea as to exactly what it is an Entertainment Lawyer is supposed to do; and (2) Most Entertainment Lawyers are only willing to walk with you and your cause just so far – usually the romance will end once the “Demand Letter” they’ve composed for you falls upon unwavering eyes and deaf ears. After that they won’t give a second thought about passing you, your case and your Ulyssean quest for justice off to a Trial Lawyer who’ll never be as familiar with the facts of your struggle as the now rapidly retreating Entertainment Lawyer you originally hired to help you – and as the shadow of that Lawyer disappears around the corner leaving you stranded in the middle of an empty sidewalk, where you can only await the clichéd piano to finally fall on your head, here’s a name for you to consider before the crash… Jay MacIntosh…
Entertainment Attorney Jay MacIntosh has never accepted the concept of “abandoning” her clients at the first drop of rain or hint of an ensuing tempest… Truth be told, Jay would sail with you through “The Perfect Storm” if she has to, and if that means going after Poseidon, Neptune or Zeus himself to calm the ocean surface and deliver you safely to your destination, then that’s just the way it’s going to have to be – whatever it takes… Principles like “commitment” and “following through on your word” may sound like archaic sentiments in our present-day society, but these are the jewels that make up the arsenal of Jay MacIntosh – and this is what, Jay will tell you, every last one of her clients is entitled to…

But before we commission the Pre-Raphaelite painting of Jay engaging in her “Clash of the Titans” with Greek Gods, let’s examine the kind of scenarios Jay would actually lend her talents to… To begin with, Jay is not an Agent… Sounds like a simple enough statement, but simple statements of truth are never deterrents for people who need something they believe you can give them. So, Jay is flooded weekly with calls by Writers, Producers, Musicians and Artists who read Jay’s previous story in Hollywood Weekly about her years as a working actress in Film and Television, and they are all convinced that a mere phone call from the office of Jay MacIntosh is the only thing standing in the way of their road to the Oscars, Grammys or Paris’ Musée du Louvre, respectively…

Legally, because of California’s Labor Laws, Jay is prohibited from submitting anyone or anything to anybody – as far as “simple statements of truth” are concerned, I hope I have now reduced this one to the subatomic level...

When then, the question now becomes, does one place their call to the offices of Entertainment Attorney Jay MacIntosh? The answer is clear enough: when one has a "lead" or something to talk about... Meaning, your date has already been set for that pitch meeting with the Producer over at Sunset Gower Studios, and you hire Jay to accompany you there not only to protect your Intellectual Property, but to handle any Contract negotiations should things move that quickly.

But let’s back up a minute: you’ve just placed a call to Jay after securing a time and place to meet a Producer and discuss your script or treatment – this is the most important moment in your career, and where invaluable wisdom and experience from jay can be the deciding factor on whether you close this deal or not... “This is where you have to do your homework,” Jay tells me on the patio of her Westwood Condo... “You have the name of the Producer, so find out as much as you can about the kind of projects they’ve produced in the past. You have to tailor your pitch to your audience. Does this Producer have a history of working with small budget television projects or big budget movies? Look at their track record. This is the kind of information you have to know before you step foot in that meeting...”

I have purposely started with an ideal situation where Jay is hired at exactly the right time to insure the interests of her client are protected, and she will negotiate the best possible deal for them...but this is rarely the case...
“Most people call me,” Jay confesses, “When their project and/or their interests have been compromised to such a degree that everything is a complete mess... But, many people make that mistake – the Attorney is literally the last person they call, when we should be the first...”

What is it that imbues us with such a grand sense of autonomy when it comes to handling our own legal affairs? There is no other profession I can think of where a potential client will first take their own course of action to resolve their crisis, and only when they can no longer continue on their course of self-destruction will they finally decide to call for legal help... Surely, this rarely occurs in the medical field – no matter how severe the pain in your heart, and your suspicions of having clogged arteries notwithstanding, I’m certain you won’t begin Coronary Bypass Surgery on yourself in the comfort of your own home before dialing 911... I am, of course, excluding the profession of dentistry in my example, because we’ve all endured having our teeth pulled from their roots by loving parents with the help of string and a swinging door... But as absurd and farcical as the idea of performing open heart surgery on your dining room table sounds, it’s no less ridiculous than “taking action” on your own before calling an Attorney.

Clearly we never see the importance of having an Attorney until it is too late, and nowhere is this more obvious than with an Entertainment Attorney... Scenario #1: You and some of your “close friends” decide to form a Production Company...in name only, so to speak... One friend comes up with an idea for a story; two friends write a script which is then rewritten by a couple other friends; another friend tries his hand at directing With A Little Help From His...well, you get the idea... The bottom line is when these guys finally get a movie finished all hell’s going to break out – and it does: the first sign of finding a distributor for their film somebody finally asks – in as delicate and eloquent a way as the scene would demand – “So, who’s getting paid for what?” 
To begin with, a Corporation or LLC or at least a collaboration agreement was never properly formed or drafted, and this is certainly one of the first things Jay would have prepared for them, and, in the process, she would find out exactly who is assuming what role in the company... Clear delineations defining one’s contributions in any kind of company must always be decided before you strike gold, because friendship and money are two separate species – friendship being a cute, cuddly Koala Bear, and money being represented by a Tyrannosaurus Rex...

As you may have noticed by now, Entertainment Attorneys have to pull from other fields of Law other than...Entertainment. Jay routinely practices – as is the case with the scenario above – not only Intellectual Property and Contract Law, but Corporate Law; and if our “Band of Brothers” still can’t decide how to divide the income from their Production Company, Jay will have to employ whatever type of law that is required to solve their dispute, which is why, for Jay, being one of the few Entertainment Lawyers who are able to Litigate a case, she is so valuable to her clients...

But Jay’s resources do not stop there... In Scenario # 2: An Actress is hired to do a role, portraying someone's wife or girlfriend in bed, but refuses to play the scene "nude".  The Director leads her to believe that he will co-operate and then, after editing the film, digitizes the film to lead the audience to believe the Actress is nude.  That can be defamation.  Or a production employee gets fired on the spot with an employment contract in place or is discriminated against or sexually harassed or such.  So, part of Jay’s Law Practice includes Sexual Harassment, Discrimination – or if the young Actress or production employee in question was fired because she didn’t want to comply with the Director’s wishes, we can add Wrongful Termination to our list...
In Scenario #3: A Producer comes to Jay because while working for a major Studio, an idea he had for a Feature Film was either stolen outright, or he was not paid the amount agreed upon before the project was started... Here, Jay calls upon her skill as an Intellectual Property law Attorney to seek justice for her clients in fraud claims in the idea submission context...and that’s what it really all comes down for Jay MacIntosh... Justice for her clients... There’s a satisfaction that comes with helping people who are victimized, or correcting a situation before it goes terribly wrong, as in our first Scenario... In all of these varied fields of Law, the one constant is Jay’s passion for her work – it is the same passion that went into her art when she was an Actress herself, only now, her focus is on the aesthetics of justice...