Location: Zoom Webinar
This course will cover legal issues in theater by discussing the career and work of the legendary Broadway songwriter Stephen Sondheim. It will explore intellectual property and contract law principles by looking back on incidents from throughout Sondheim’s career, such as negotiating billing and royalties with Leonard Bernstein, turning dialogue written by his collaborators into lyrics, using someone else’s idea as the basis for an unconventional musical, obtaining underlying rights from other famous writers, taking part in backers’ auditions, and filing a lawsuit against the original producer of the last new musical produced during his lifetime.
Continuing Legal Education: 1 CLE credit for attorneys (Professional Practice). Approved for Non-Transitional and Transitional Attorneys.
Instructor: Matthew A. Windman, Esq., Associate, McCarter & English, LLP
Matthew Windman is an attorney focused on corporate, securities, and business transactions law.
Prior to joining McCarter & English, Matthew worked at a law firm in New York City where he represented municipal corporations and private entities in all aspects of pre-trial litigation and managed complex cases involving class action claims, mass torts, insurance coverage, product liability, environmental law, and defamation.
He is actively involved with Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts, through which he has provided pro bono legal services to writers and theater artists and presented CLE seminars.
Matthew’s articles have been published in the New York Law Journal and numerous other publications. He has written about theater for the newspaper amNewYork since 2004 and is a member of the New York Drama Critics Circle and Drama Desk Association. In 2016, his book The Critics Say…57 Theater Reviewers in New York and Beyond Discuss Their Craft and Its Future was published by McFarland.
Matthew received his BA from New York University, where he studied theater, literature, and journalism. He received his JD from New York Law School where he was the Senior Editor of the New York Law School Review.