LAW SELLS FASTER THAN THRILLS
Cooley Godward Kronish partner Nancy Wojtas is writing two books.
One is a fictional thriller featuring a law firm partner and an ex-boyfriend who’s an FBI agent on the run. The other is a how-to guide for lawyers and businesses on how to take a public company private.
Unfortunately, for those waiting to read the thriller, there’s no publisher yet. But fortunately, for befuddled boards of directors everywhere, the book on going private is going to be published by the Practicing Law Institute next year.
“There’s stuff written about going-private transactions, but there’s no book that tells you about what you should be thinking about at each stage of the transaction,” said Wojtas, who heads Cooley’s public securities practice.
“As a result, I think people end up scrambling or just going to the same law firm all the time.”
Wojtas said that the wave of backdating scandals, combined with the flood of private equity money, has spurred more discussions about leaving behind the scrutiny that comes with being a public company.
“People are fed up with airing every piece of dirty laundry out there and [are] saying, ‘Gee, if we were private we wouldn’t have to do that,’” said Wojtas.
The Palo Alto lawyer said her firm is currently advising some companies about the option of going private but declined to offer further details.
While companies often face nerve-racking deadlines when going private, Wojtas is facing her own deadlines on the still-untitled legal book. To remedy that, she’ll head to Hawaii next month to concentrate on writing it.
Wojtas said she’s always loved to write but never thought she could make a career of it, so she writes on the side. Her past work includes chapters in legal books as well as an episode of “Seinfeld” that was never sold.
Her current novel project is about half done, and although one of the characters is a law firm partner, she said the thrilling plot is not based on her life.
� Zusha Elinson
NEXT: CELEBRITY CLONE ACT?
An interesting revision got slapped onto a California bill about licensing revenues born from stem cell research: an item amending the publicity rights for dead celebrities.
“This is a funny place for it since it’s a stem cell bill,” said Neil Smith, a Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton partner who heard about the item through his intellectual property circles. “It usually happens when someone’s in a hurry to get something passed, such as funding in Congress.”
A couple of state senators introduced the original stem cell bill, SB 771, earlier this year, but the celebrity revision didn’t come until the end of June. Sen. Sheila Kuehl, D-Santa Monica, one of the original authors, attached a provision regarding the rights of celebrities who died before a law protecting the publicity rights of deceased stars went into effect decades ago.
That revision is widely thought to be fueled by lobbyists for Marilyn Monroe. The pop icon died before the state passed a law that extended the publicity rights for a celebrity to 70 years after their death.
Since that law doesn’t expressly apply(.pdf) to the willed heirs of celebrities who died before it was passed in the mid-1980s, Monroe’s heirs haven’t been able to collect on her publicity rights. Now they’re lobbying to change that.
But Smith predicted the proposal isn’t likely to go much further.
For one thing, Monroe’s image is already in the public domain, and rescinding that use would be a huge task. The rights to other dead celebrities’ images would only magnify the issue.
If the provision does hang on until September, he might bring it up as a topic for debate when the State Bar’s conference of delegates discusses IP legislation at their annual meeting.
He doesn’t think it’s likely to have too many supporters there: “Many of us are rolling our eyes. To bring something back to life like this is kind of crazy.”
� Kellie Schmitt
