This is the season when Hollywood braces for platoons of carpetbaggers who land on the legal scene. The annual spate of awards shows (January’s Golden Globes, this month’s Grammys and the Academy Awards in March) draws out-of-town entertainment players to the L.A. legal landscape in droves.
“If a bomb had dropped on L.A. on Wednesday, the music industry would have been out of business,” says Jeffrey Kempler, referring to the concentration of lawyers, recording artists and label execs who amassed in Tinseltown on Feb. 23 for the Grammy Awards show. Kempler and his law partner, Jess Rosen, flew into town from Atlanta not just for the show but to hobnob throughout Grammy week — even though their firm, Greenberg Traurig, opened an office in Los Angeles last month. “Those who aren’t at the Grammys are seen as peripheral,” says Kempler. “It helps you to be there, but it hurts you more not to.”
