Viewers may BE ditching TV in droves to do their watching on the Web, but the fate of a ratings-challenged talk show served as the basis for one of 2010′s hottest Hollywood legal dramas. At issue: Would NBC dump Conan O’Brien as host of The Tonight Show in favor of the man he succeeded, Jay Leno? A very public standoff ended with O’Brien—whose legal team was led by entertainment lawyer Leigh Brecheen and litigator Patricia Glaser—departing NBC with a $45 million settlement. Not a bad chunk of severance in one of the glitziest labor and employment cases in recent memory. (Gibson Dunn & Crutcher‘s Scott Edelman advised NBC amid the split.) By year-end, after an enforced break that included a “Legally Prohibited from Being Funny on Television” tour—O’Brien was back with a TBS show that started off strong.
While O’Brien and NBC avoided court, the dispute over control of comic book icon Superman entered an especially acrimonious, and litigious, chapter. In May, Warner Brothers sued Marc Toberoff, the lawyer whose suit on behalf of Superman cocreator Jerome Siegel’s heirs led to a 2008 ruling that cost the studio a portion of the rights to the lucrative superhero franchise. (Toberoff has also represented the estate of Siegel’s Superman collaborator, Joseph Shuster.) Represented by Daniel Petrocelli of O’Melveny & Myers, Warner’s claims that Toberoff is trying to gain control of nearly half the rights to the Man of Steel through a series of improper side deals. Toberoff, represented by Richard Kendall at Kendall Brill & Klieger, accused the studio of employing “thug tactics” to try to retain rights to Superman. After a series of delays, the judge overseeing the case ruled in November that Petrocelli could proceed with depositions of the Siegel and Shuster heirs.
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