Brenda Feigen

Brenda Feigen is an experienced entertainment, general business transaction, anti-discrimination and family lawyer, who became Of Counsel to Kenoff & Machtinger, LLP, in 2004.

In the entertainment field, she has handled matters involving motion picture, television, literary, art, music, copyright and other intellectual property areas. Clients range from producers to rights owners, authors, writers, directors, actors, artists, composers and singers. In the '80s she was both a business affairs attorney and a motion picture agent at the William Morris Agency where she represented producers, writers and actors, such as Jane Alexander, Karen Allen, Loretta Swit and Mike Farrell. Ms. Alexander is still her client. Ms. Feigen also represents companies that need her firm's services with respect to mergers with and acquisitions of other entertainment companies. She recently settled an important copyright case against a large New York publishing house. Her interest in art law has been fueled by her brother, art dealer, Richard Feigen, and the many artists and collectors she has met through him.

Her entertainment practice has been enhanced by her own experience as producer of a big-budget Hollywood movie, NAVY SEALS (Orion, 1990), and she lectures frequently on subjects ranging from the role of the producer in motion pictures and television to the respective roles of agents and attorneys, from the contents of different kinds of entertainment-related contracts to deals for television and motion picture writers, as well as contracts for authors with publishers. Again, Ms. Feigen's own experience as an author proves valuable. She wrote her memoir, Not One of the Boys, Living Life as a Feminist, which was published by Alfred A. Knopf in 2000.

In fact, Brenda Feigen's practice involves the negotiation of many different kinds of business transactions. Her clients are diverse, some corporate and other entities; some, individuals. She gives both legal and practical business advice, where required. Her expertise ranges from employment contracts of all kinds to real estate transactions and business mergers, areas that require not only knowledge of the law but also sharp business acumen. Ms. Feigen helps clients create businesses, drafts joint venture and other start-up agreements, including non-disclosure and non-compete clauses. Her ability to negotiate and draft contracts of all kinds appeals to a wide range of clients.

Ms. Feigen's practice also includes all aspects of anti-discrimination law: gender discrimination, sexual harassment, sexual orientation, race, ethnic origin, disability and age discrimination cases, as well as retaliation and wrongful termination. She brings a great deal of experience to this area of the law. In 1972, she co-founded the ACLU's Women's Rights Project with now Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and then expanded its scope to include the Reproductive Freedom Rights Project. Ms. Feigen has litigated sex discrimination cases that involved both violations of state law, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, as well as landmark constitutional cases. Ms. Feigen brought a successful federal class action lawsuit against the Harvard Club of New York City, which had hitherto refused women graduates the right to become full members. The first article she authored for the Harvard Women's Law Journal, "May a State Rescind its Ratification of a Pending Constitutional Amendment?", addressed the issues raised by the passage out of Congress of the Equal Rights Amendment, the ratification of that amendment by 37 states and then the attempts by the far right to pressure states to rescind their prior ratifications. Ms. Feigen appeared on national television and in many news stories on the subject of the Equal Rights Amendment and discrimination against women throughout the '70s, starting when she was elected National Vice President of NOW in 1970.

Ms. Feigen's interest in family law began with a case she brought on behalf of a father against the New York City Board of Education which had routinely denied parental leaves of absence to all fathers but granted them to all mothers. From that she started a family law practice in New York with her former husband that has now evolved into a practice in California that includes divorce, domestic partnerships (creation and dissolution), child custody and support, pre-nuptial agreements for same and opposite sex couples and palimony. Ms. Feigen works in concert with investigators whenever it makes sense to do so. She has spoken around the country on the issue of same-sex marriage, most recently in Minneapolis, on the constitutional issues raised by limiting the right to marry to heterosexual couples. Her article, "Same Sex Marriage: An Issue of Constitutional Rights not Moral Opinions", appeared recently in the Harvard Women's Law Journal.

Ms. Feigen is an honors graduate of Vassar College where she majored in Mathematics. She graduated from Harvard Law School in 1969. In 1978, she became an Honorary President's Fellow at Columbia University where she studied international politics. Two decades later, she became the Director of "Entertainment Goes Global", a joint project of USC's Annenberg School and the Pacific Council on International Politics.

Ms. Feigen has written numerous articles on entertainment law, as well as women in the law. In 1993 and 2003, Ms. Feigen was a featured speaker at Harvard Law School's Celebration 40 and Celebration 50 (celebrating the 40th and 50th anniversaries of the first class of female graduates). In the '90s, Ms. Feigen taught a class on the Role of the Producer in Motion Pictures at UCLA. In 2001, she spoke at Harvard Law and Business and Yale Law Schools on the subject of women and the law and did the same in 2005 at Berkeley's Law School, Boalt Hall, as well as Occidental College. For the past five years, Ms. Feigen has spoken to groups of lawyers at symposia organized by California Lawyers for the Arts on various aspects of entertainment law. In 2004, she was on a panel at Harvard Law School, moderated by Harvard Law Professor Arthur Miller entitled "Privacy and Protection." That same year, Ms. Feigen was also a panelist at the Austin Film Festival and addressed a writers' symposium there on contracts between studios and writers, as well as a lawyers' symposium on related subjects. In October 2003, Ms. Feigen moderated a panel on "Making Deals with Cable Networks" and participated in a panel entitled "From Book to Film in an Era of Blockbusters and Tent Poles" for the American Bar Association Forum: "Entertainment and Sports Law in the New Economy".

In addition to sharing her experiences as a producer, Ms. Feigen has lectured on the law of movies and television for the Practicing Law Institute, California Lawyers for the Arts and numerous other organizations. She also authored a book review for Entertainment and Sports Lawyer, a publication of the ABA Forum on the Entertainment and Sports Industries (Vol. 21, No. 4, Winter, 2004), of lawyer Peter Dekom's provocative book: Not On My Watch: Hollywood vs. the Future.

Ms. Feigen is admitted to practice in California, New York and Massachusetts. She is a member of the American, California, Los Angeles County, Beverly Hills and New York Bar Associations. She serves on the Boards of Directors of California Lawyers for the Arts and Population Media Center and is on the Board of Advisors of the Association of American Screenwriters. She served as Chair of the Board of The National Breast Cancer Education and Legal Center. She is a member of the Harvard Club of New York City. Ms. Feigen is active in the arts as well as politics, having run for the Democratic nomination for New York's 26th State Senatorial seat. She is listed in many reference books, including Who's Who in America.