Kenneth Kleinberg
Kenneth, a founding and senior partner of the Firm, is one of the most effective and respected attorneys in the entertainment industry.
He is a transactional attorney specializing in business negotiations and legal matters for a wide variety of prominent individuals and companies, including some of the entertainment industry’s most famous and successful actors, writers and authors, directors, producers, distributors, musical artists and rock groups, animators, visual effects and animation designers and producers, game designers, international broadcasters, corporate executives, literary and talent agents, managers, specialists in CGI cinematography, the internet and other emerging technologies, as well as domestic and international distributors and broadcasters.
Mr. Kleinberg has very deep experience in international entertainment law transactions since 1969 involving complex arrangements for development, financing, production, and distribution of motion picture and television product; co-financing and so called “soft money” transactions; the purchase and sale of film and music companies and libraries; television licensing agreements; and participation and royalty audits.
Mr. Kleinberg is a graduate of UCLA and UCLA School of Law. His initial work as an attorney was for two years at the Federal Communications Commission in Washington, D.C. Mr. Kleinberg is admitted to practice in California and the District of Columbia.
This firm marks Mr. Kleinberg’s second career as a practicing entertainment lawyer. Previously from 1969 through 1985, Mr. Kleinberg served as an associate, partner and then senior partner and head of the entertainment division of the Los Angeles law firm of Mitchell, Silberberg & Knupp. Between late 1985 and 1991 Mr. Kleinberg served first as Executive Vice President and a director of a major studio, United Artists Corporation, and then as President and Chief Operating Officer of Weintraub Entertainment Group, an independent motion picture, television and music production/distribution company. Accordingly, he understands transactions from the point of view of owner-entrepreneurs, as well as talent.
Mr. Kleinberg has often appeared as a guest lecturer and/or panel moderator in programs concerning entertainment business/law at USC, UCLA and Columbia Law Schools, UCLA Extension, and other forums including UCLA’s 2009 UCLA Entertainment Symposium on the subject of the effect of globalization in the movie industry; the 2006 UCLA Entertainment Symposium on the subject of contingent compensation in the film and television industries, and at ShoWest, a motion picture industry trade conference, as part of the Hollywood Reporter’s Marketing Conference on the subject of “The Changing Economics of the Business.” For two years Mr. Kleinberg taught the producers course at the American Film Institute. In 2007, 2008, and again in 2009, The Hollywood Reporter named Mr. Kleinberg one of the “Power Lawyers” in the entertainment industry, and in 2008 Daily Variety named him among its top dealmakers in its “Dealmakers Impact Report ’08″, and Mr. Kleinberg was named a 2008 and 2009 “Southern California Super Lawyer” in the field of entertainment and sports law.
Mr. Kleinberg is involved in a wide variety of community, civic and philanthropic endeavors. He is a member of the board of directors and was the first chairman of the American Cinematheque, a non-profit organization dedicated to film appreciation and studies which operates the Egyptian Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard and the Aero Theater in Santa Monica. He is a long-time member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts Sciences; the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences; the Los Angeles County and Beverly Hills Bar Associations; the Planning Committee for UCLA’s annual Entertainment Symposium; and is founder and president of University Kidney Research Organization, a non-profit organization dedicated to medical research concerning the causes, improved treatments for, and prevention of kidney diseases.
Mr. Kleinberg is married to Helen Kleinberg, one of the founders and several times chair of the Los Angeles County Commission on Children and Family Services. Helen Kleinberg also has been active for decades in programs involving improvement and reform of public education in Los Angeles. Together they have three married children and seven grandchildren.
