Counsel, Business and Legal Affairs

Job Description

Overview and Responsibilities

MTV Entertainment Group (MTV, Comedy Central, VH1 and Paramount Networks) is seeking it's next talented and passionate Production Attorney! We are seeking a hardworking Business and Legal Affairs Counsel to provide day-to-day services with a focus on digital and short-form original content, as well as production matters for original scripted and unscripted series. This exciting position will be located in either New York, NY or Los Angeles, CA, depending on candidate.

Primary Duties Will Include:
• Structuring, drafting and negotiating a high volume of development and production agreements for short-form projects (including writer agreements, director agreements, talent and influencer agreements and location releases) in connection with original short-form series, specials, and formats for distribution across MTV Entertainment Group's various digital platforms.
• Performing day-to-day legal production work on both scripted and unscripted original series, as needed.
• Working with a broad range of departments, including Production, Labor & Employment, Risk Management, and Litigation to implement production legal policies and procedures.
• Participating in and contributing to strategic deal discussions, and researching business and legal issues.
• Counseling internal clients on a wide variety of legal matters, including guild/union and labor issues, IP rights, music issues, and providing risk assessment for production-related matters.
• Performing other day-to-day legal and business affairs-related tasks as needed and assigned by senior legal executives.

Basic Qualifications
• Must be member in good standing of the New York and/or California Bar(s) (or eligible for Registered In-House Counsel designation).
• Minimum of two years of transferable experience (ideally with business/legal affairs experience in a network, studio, entertainment law firm or production company environment).
• Excellent drafting, negotiation, communication (written and verbal), interpersonal and organizational skills.
• Strong ability to analyze fact patterns and devise creative solutions that allow network executives to execute their creative vision in compliance with corporate policies and guidelines, while minimizing overall legal and business risk.
• Must be able to multi-task under pressure, handle a varied, high-volume workload efficiently, and operate independently with minimal supervision.
• Build strong internal client relationships, and generate strong client satisfaction through quick turnaround and firm decision-making.

Additional Qualifications
• Ideally, you should be well-versed in entertainment industry customs and practices, and possess prove ability to effectively negotiate and interact with agents, managers and outside attorneys.
• Working knowledge of television industry agreements, guild and union regulations (WGA, DGA and SAG-AFTRA), contract law and intellectual property rights (as applicable to the entertainment industry), along with demonstrated capability for legal research, analysis and reasoning is a plus.
• The BALA department works as a team in a highly collaborative manner. The ideal candidate will have a cooperative, positive, team spirit.

Jobcode: Reference SBJ-r18ybe-3-17-6-75-42 in your application.