Kenneth Kleinberg

Mr. Kleinberg, a founding and the senior partner of the Firm, is among the most renown and respected attorneys in the entertainment industry. In April of 2011 he was feted as the “2011 Entertainment Lawyer of the Year” by the nation’s most prominent entertainment bar association in Beverly Hills, CA.Mr. Kleinberg 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, authors and writers, directors, producers, distributors, musical artists and rock groups, animators, visual effects and animation designers and producers, game designers, international broadcasters, entrepreneurs, 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, television 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 speaker or 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 Sho West, 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. From 2007-2011, in 2013, and from 2015-2016, The Hollywood Reporter named Mr. Kleinberg one of the talent “Power Lawyers” in the entertainment industry, and in 2008 and again in 2013 Variety named him among its top talent dealmakers. Mr. Kleinberg was selected for inclusion in the 2017 and 2018 editions of “The Best Lawyers in America,” which ranks him among the top lawyers in the country, and was named a “Southern California Super Lawyer” from 2009-2017 in the field of entertainment and sports law. He has also earned the highest rating (“AV Preeminent”) for legal ability and ethics by Martindale-Hubbell.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 landmark 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 Law School’s annual Entertainment Symposium; and is founder and president of University Kidney Research Organization (www.ukrocharity.org) a non-profit organization dedicated to medical research concerning the causes, improved treatments for, and prevention of kidney diseases.In 2014, Mr. Kleinberg was elected to the Board of Trustees of the California Science Center in Los Angeles. Mr. Kleinberg has been a member of USC’s Widney Society since 2012.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.