Gordon Firemark - Entertainment Law

Louis Goodman / Gordon Firemark - Transcript

[00:00:03] Louis Goodman: Welcome to Love Thy Lawyer, where we talk with attorneys about their lives and careers. I'm your host, Louis Goodman. Today we welcome Gordon P. Firemark to the podcast. Based in LA, Mr. Firemark represents producers, artists, and businesses in television, film, publishing, and digital media. He's worked in the field of copyright and trademark enforcement.

He's taught law at many of the law schools and universities throughout the Los Angeles area. He's a Super Lawyer. He's presented at numerous conferences and business events and been a guest expert on over 150 podcasts. Gordon Firemark, welcome to Love Thy Lawyer. 

[00:00:52] Gordon Firemark: Thank you, Louis. It's great to be here. I'm honored to be a part of your show. 

[00:00:56] Louis Goodman: Thank you. It's nice to meet you in person. Tell us, where are you speaking to us from right now? 

[00:01:01] Gordon Firemark: I'm sitting in my home office in Saugus, California, north of the LA area. 

[00:01:07] Louis Goodman: Can you explain how you understand your practice? What type of practice do you have in your words?

[00:01:15] Gordon Firemark: In my words, my words for the kind of practice I have starts with lifestyle. It's a lifestyle law practice, not the other way around. A law practice lifestyle was never something I wanted. So I have built a practice doing entertainment media, business law, helping creators get their messages out and those kinds of things.

Transactional stuff, primarily for most of the last 33 years or so. And I get to put my head down at night knowing I've done some good work for good people and help them get their messages out and that's what's important to me. 

[00:01:47] Louis Goodman: How long have you been doing this type of work? 

[00:01:50] Gordon Firemark: I started practice, I finished law school in 1992 and started, I guess my first job was 1993 and doing litigation in a small boutique, and that lasted briefly before I went out on my own for various reasons. And most of that time has been focused on the transactional side. 

[00:02:08] Louis Goodman: Where are you from originally? 

[00:02:09] Gordon Firemark: Moved around a lot when I was little, but I grew up mostly in the LA area. Finished high school here and, and then off to college in Oregon, back to LA for the entertainment industry. 

[00:02:19] Louis Goodman: So what high school did you go to?

[00:02:20] Gordon Firemark: Palace Verde High School. 

[00:02:23] Louis Goodman: Then when you went to college and you went where? 

[00:02:25] Gordon Firemark: Go Ducks. University of Oregon. 

[00:02:27] Louis Goodman: Now at some point you graduated from the Duck University and you went to law school. Where did you go to law school? 

[00:02:34] Gordon Firemark: I went to Southwestern. I actually, after college took a year off. I applied to schools and just decided to take a year work in the entertainment industry. 

[00:02:44] Louis Goodman: What did you do in between college and law school? You were in the entertainment industry. What specifically did you do?

[00:02:49] Gordon Firemark: I was a line producer for television sports, and live events coverage for a cable operation that later was absorbed by the the big sports networks that came up in the late eighties. 

[00:03:01] Louis Goodman: So here's a two part question. When did you first realize that you wanted to be a lawyer? And when did you actually send in the money, fill out the application and really do it? And what were the things that prompted you in those two endeavors?

[00:03:20] Gordon Firemark: The flippant part of me wants to say, I'm not sure I ever realized I wanted to be a lawyer. It was my senior year in college when I was studying radio, TV and film production and stuff like that. I had finished the major and I was taking some of the graduate level classes in government regulation of media and public policy and management in the industry and those kinds of things.

And I was getting the top scores out of all the students in these classes and the professor who taught one of those classes, Deanna Robinson, pulled me aside after class one day and said, Hey, you got the top score in this class. You really got an aptitude for this stuff. Have you thought about going to law school?

I was in the middle of applying to USC film school and things like that, and I'd never, it had occurred to me and later that same night, I was talking with an old high school friend on the phone and he said, I'm applying to law school. And I said, I think I might too. I got into law school, so that was part of the decision making, but it was really an afterthought for me. 

[00:04:12] Louis Goodman: When you told your friends and family, Hey, I'm going to law school, what did people say? 

[00:04:18] Gordon Firemark: I grew up in a medical family. My dad was a physician, my mom an audiologist. And when I brought the subject of law school up, it was like an epiphany. It's like everybody, of course you're gonna go to law school. It was the argumentativeness and I could've made a case for the moon being made of green cheese, those kinds of things as a kid, yeah, it didn't come as big surprise. It was, why didn't we think of that sooner? 

[00:04:41] Louis Goodman: Can you talk a little bit about when you first graduated from law school and the moves that you made, and take us through the path to where you are now in your practice?

[00:04:52] Gordon Firemark: So the early nineties, for those who were around, well, remember there was a TV show, LA Law on the air. Made it look extraordinarily sexy to be a lawyer, especially in Los Angeles. And that meant there were a lot of students applying and going through law school, and that meant a glut coming out. Right at a time when, at least the entertainment industry, I think the legal industry as a whole was contracting and firms combining and merging, and so jobs were scarce.

I came out of law school without a plan, without a job, without a clear path other than knowing it was going to be entertainment law because of my background and what my resume looks like, and that made it even a little harder to find a job. I ended up starting with a firm, actually replacing a law school classmate of mine who was moving on and he was given the mission of Find His Replacement and he thought of me and it worked out okay.

This was a boutique entertainment law litigation firm that was still just getting on its feet. And I was there for maybe half a year, six months or so before the economics of the firm and the dynamics of personalities in the firm made it pretty clear to me that this wasn't where I needed to be. So my grandfather, oh, so I left that firm and my phone started ringing people that I'd known from the television business and the theater business that I'd worked in, and just friends and folks who now knew I was a lawyer, needed a little help with this.

A little collection matter, the dribs and drabs that young lawyers do, and my grandfather was visiting. I was sitting at my parents' kitchen table doing this at one point, and my grandfather said, let me give you some money. Go open an office, buy a desk, that kind of thing. And so I had my first shareholder, 

[00:06:35] Louis Goodman: Grandpa.

[00:06:36] Gordon Firemark: Yeah, exactly. And he staked me to probably the first year's worth of rent in the office and those kinds of things. And that was the beginning, the runway. It took longer than that to really get off the runway, but it became a solo practice lawyer very early on in my career without a lot of experience to lead, to guide me.

And it was a lot of trial and error and a lot of hit or miss. I wouldn't trade it for the world. I've learned so much. 

[00:07:00] Louis Goodman: That kind of brings up a, a question for me, which is, you've been practicing law now for over 30 years. 

[00:07:05] Gordon Firemark: Yeah. 

[00:07:06] Louis Goodman: You're obviously a talented guy, there's a lot of things that you could do, and yet you've chosen to stay as a lawyer, as a practicing attorney. Why is that? What's that about? What is it that you like about practicing law that keeps you as a lawyer? 

[00:07:21] Gordon Firemark: One, you, the money, you can charge a nice fee for your time and services. I, I am I, but I really, I'm, I think I'm serving, I'm helping people, as I've said, achieve the kind of impact and influence and income that they want doing the kind of work they love.

Mm-hmm. Creative people are breeded apart, and I like to say because of my background in live theater and then in the film, I speak creative, and so I'm in a unique position to bridge a gap between the creative mind and the business legal mind, and to help them make deals that make sense, that protect their interests.

So that's very rewarding. But also, I've had a lot of side hustles along the way. I've taught university and law school, things like that, which I view as a sort of giving back, and that I built some online course to help train folks again, in the same field. The folks who aren't gonna hire lawyers but still need help.

So I'm here for them. And I get to tinker with technology and websites and podcasting and all these kinds of things, and it's fun. So, I guess what's made me be able to stay doing the lawyer thing is that I have these other interests and I'm able to divide my attention a little bit and enjoy other things.

[00:08:32] Louis Goodman: Yeah. I think that's so important. I think a lot of people don't realize it, and I'm not sure all lawyers are doing it, but I think practicing law really can be fun. Sure. And my dad practiced law for many years. Mm-hmm. And he always said, law is a huge field. There's so many different things that you can do in it, that you can use it for and, and I think that's becoming more and more true now as we move into this world where so much has opened up.

[00:09:02] Gordon Firemark: Yeah. Yeah. There's that whole, the big law grind thing that I think wears a lot of lawyers down. I think those of us that are solo and small firm practice, we are able to build that lifestyle practice that gives us what we need. 

[00:09:14] Louis Goodman: Yeah. 

[00:09:14] Gordon Firemark: And lets us have other interests and enjoy, whether it's hobbies, I don't have a sailboat, I don't, those kinds of things that, so I indulge my extracurricular stuff in things that are related to what I do as a lawyer. It's good.

[00:09:26] Louis Goodman: If a young person were just coming out of college and thinking about a career, would you recommend the law? 

[00:09:31] Gordon Firemark: It's a strong maybe. If someone like I was coming out, yeah, I probably would say no. I think that if I had it to do over again, I don't know that I would. 

[00:09:40] Louis Goodman: Uhhuh. 

[00:09:40] Gordon Firemark: It's been harder than I wanted it to be. Harder than I liked. 

[00:09:43] Louis Goodman: Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:09:44] Gordon Firemark: Very rewarding, but 

[00:09:46] Louis Goodman: Yeah, pricing and law is hard. It is. Yeah. It's true. 

[00:09:49] Gordon Firemark: And. 

[00:09:49] Louis Goodman: It could be fun, but it's hard. 

[00:09:51] Gordon Firemark: Yeah. So I would say to someone who wants to, who thinks they want to be a lawyer? Right? Make sure you really want to be a lawyer, right? Make sure you know what you're doing.

Shadow some lawyers. Get a sense of what the work is really like before you make the decision. Because that's something I didn't do. It was like, oh, that sounds like a fun idea and my friends are doing it. I didn't really know what being a lawyer was gonna mean. 

[00:10:09] Louis Goodman: How about the business of practicing law? I bring this up a lot, but one of the things that bothers me is that law schools absolutely fail to explain basic business practices to people who need to understand basic business practices in virtually any kind of law practice.

Maybe if you're working for the government or you're a Public Defender, yeah, a Deputy DA, you don't really need to worry about it too much. In virtually any other kind of practice, whether it's a small firm, big firm, you need to have some understanding of business. And so I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about your business and how your business of practicing law has gone for you and your thoughts on that.

[00:10:51] Gordon Firemark: I think you're absolutely right. Law, and it's not just law schools that fail, I think it's colleges and even the high school experience. 

[00:10:57] Louis Goodman: Yeah. 

[00:10:57] Gordon Firemark: Could do a better job of teaching about business basics, sales, marketing, how to promote and solve problems that people actually have and wanna pay for solutions.

That's ultimate what worked the business is there's a lot I wish I had known, came out and I knew how to think like a lawyer, how to research and I, I was, had some expertise in a certain areas of practice and knew where to find answers. But where do you find clients? How do you get, especially as a solo, what's the trick?

What's, and it was really throw things against the wall, see what sticks. And I wish I'd had a little more training and maybe a little more background and experience from time working in firms, but 

[00:11:33] Louis Goodman: What stuck for you? What stuck for you? 

[00:11:35] Gordon Firemark: Content marketing. Coming out in early nineties, this was the beginning of the worldwide web when Al Gore invented this thing called the Super Highway, and I was one of the early lawyers to even put up a website, yeah, a billboard along that super highway. And certainly in California, I think I was among top five or first five or 10 people who did it. And I got a lot of feedback. Oh, are you sure that's not advertising that's gonna get you in trouble? Those kind of things. So I found my way. 

[00:11:59] Louis Goodman: What year was this? 

[00:12:00] Gordon Firemark: 1993.

[00:12:02] Louis Goodman: Okay. 

[00:12:03] Gordon Firemark: And so I had a website and I started, my first marketing initiative was a printed newsletter that I called Entertainment Law Update, and I did a four page mailer that I sat and stuff, licked envelopes and stamps, and yeah, sent out this mailer quarterly, just a, an article I'd written and some thoughts about this, and an invitation to get ahold of me and the phone started ringing a little bit slow.

[00:12:29] Louis Goodman: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yep.

[00:12:31] Gordon Firemark: A few years goes by and then email is becoming more ubiquitous and I've, I learned that I could do this as an email newsletter and I adopted that approach and turned the newsletter content into website content and that, and teaching a principal and proving myself as a thought leader in those areas really was the answer.

Because when people went searching, they would see my name and building that email list was just a matter of anybody I knew. Who else do you know? Tell 'em about this kind. It's just that trying to get it viral. Trying is the key word there. And over time that evolved into blogging and then a podcast. 

[00:13:07] Louis Goodman: Is there anything that you know now that you really wished you'd known when you first started out?

[00:13:13] Gordon Firemark: I really wish I had known that formulation of identify a problem that people have and want to pay to solve, and then provide that solution. Yeah, I think we, that's what we do as lawyers, but if you don't know who the ideal client is and what their problem is, you're throwing everything out there. And it could have been much more targeted, much more specific, and much more effective had I gotten that message early on. It really took a long time for me to grok that concept. 

[00:13:43] Louis Goodman: What do you think is the best advice that you've ever received? And or maybe it's the same answer, what advice would you give to a young attorney just starting out? 

[00:13:53] Gordon Firemark: The best advice I've ever received I think goes in that if when you're going through hell keep going.

[00:13:58] Louis Goodman: Yeah. 

[00:13:59] Gordon Firemark: When things are hard, that's not when you stop, that's when you double down, push a little harder because then you get through it. Yeah. And you have that body of experience. So there's that. Finish what you start is pretty strong. Although you have to take that with the grain of salt that hey, sometimes you start something and realize you really don't need to finish.

It shouldn't bother. It's not gonna have the return you hoped for, whatever. So being a little ruthless about cutting the chat, eliminating the excess, and I think that for young lawyers especially, it's really, yeah. Always ask, what's the return I'm expecting and monitor? Are you getting there or is this just spinning my wheels as it's taking me off on a sidetrack.

[00:14:38] Louis Goodman: You've had a long opportunity to observe the justice system of the legal system. Do you think that it's fair? 

[00:14:46] Gordon Firemark: I think that the justice system has the potential for fairness. I think that some of that potential has been lost or squandered at the altar of big business and dollars. 

[00:14:59] Louis Goodman: I'm gonna shift gears here a little bit. How has your personal life, family life been like, and how has that fit into the practice of law? How's the practice of law fit into your other life?

[00:15:11] Gordon Firemark: Good, great question. I allowed my focus on my career and my practice to take the front seat for, gosh, the first 10 years of my practice. About a little longer than that. 

[00:15:23] Louis Goodman: Have to, don't you?

[00:15:25] Gordon Firemark: Yeah. I guess it didn't really turn in the direction of my personal life until mid to late thirties. I met the woman who I'm now married to. We've been married. It's actually today is our 20th anniversary. 

[00:15:37] Louis Goodman: Wow. Congratulations. 

[00:15:38] Gordon Firemark: And we have three beautiful kids and fantastic two dogs and three cats and Wow menagerie here at the house, and I love it. She's a wonderful woman who has grounded and centered me in ways that I didn't know were possible. It challenges me in ways I didn't know were possible. And the kids do that too, but they're all great people. 

[00:15:53] Louis Goodman: So do you see any of your kids as being budding attorneys?

[00:15:58] Gordon Firemark: The youngest is at 12. He's a real smart Alec. A class clown. Always got the twisting, you know, the, yeah, playing, playing with the words. I hope it's not lawyer in training stuff. I hope he a standup comic or something. But no, I think we'll see where he goes with it. Yeah. He says he wants to be an astrophysicist, but the other kids are, no, they're focused in other directions.

[00:16:21] Louis Goodman: What sort of recreational experiences do you enjoy when you're not practicing law?

[00:16:27] Gordon Firemark: I enjoy travel. I don't get to do it in a non-business context nearly as much as I would like. It's been a few years since we had a real vacation and with kids and the, it's just challenging. 

[00:16:37] Louis Goodman: Sure. Yeah. 

[00:16:38] Gordon Firemark: But I also enjoy theater. All forms of entertainment really. Yeah. But live theater has a particular energy, a particular kind of creativity. Yeah. And having grown up working behind the scenes in theaters, I just need to breathe theater air from time to time. And so musical theater is a big thing. My wife and I bonded over it on our first date and had a themed wedding around musical theater and all of those kinds of things.

So it's, that's really a passion of mine that I, unfortunately, I also don't get to indulge as often as I'd like, but I try to keep my fingers in the pie.

[00:17:07] Louis Goodman: Is there someone either living or out of the historical past who you really like to meet? 

[00:17:13] Gordon Firemark: Yeah. I always go back to my dad who passed away just as I was getting on my feet as a lawyer. Yeah. Yeah. And he was a physician, but he had a unique interest and passion and curiosity about life and everything else. And so we had good conversations and I wish that where there were more of those, but historical figures, I would say Thomas Jefferson, I think Ben Franklin would've been a fascinating person to converse with.

[00:17:36] Louis Goodman: What mistakes do you think lawyers make? 

[00:17:39] Gordon Firemark: I think ego drives a lot of mistakes for lawyers. I think we get full of ourselves or we pursue the trappings of success as lawyer. 

[00:17:48] Louis Goodman: Yeah. 

[00:17:48] Gordon Firemark: Sometimes at the expense of being good at what we're doing or doing what we do well. Yeah, and I'd say as for young lawyers especially, this is something I did a little bit as a young lawyer, the cars and the suits and the expenses on things that in the scheme of things really don't matter. 

[00:18:04] Louis Goodman: So how do you define success for yourself? 

[00:18:06] Gordon Firemark: For me, success is doing good work for good people, helping good people. That's that get the message out for people who have something to say and protect them while they do it so they can continue doing the thing they love. That's part of it. Living a life on my own terms, being able to have the home I want and the family life I want and I've been working from a home office since 2001. Yeah, something like that. And that's meant that when the kids came along, I was able to be here at dinnertime. Sometimes I had to go back in the office after, but I was able to be with them from dinnertime to bedtime and up in the morning to get them off to school because I didn't have to do an hour long commute or something like that. And for me, that was tremendously valuable. I'm a family man. It's important to me. And ultimately raising these good people to be good people is my real definition of success. 

[00:18:57] Louis Goodman: I know you do a lot of teaching and, and speaking. What sort of things do you like to teach and what sort of things do you like to speak about?

[00:19:05] Gordon Firemark: What I like to teach about is the things that I have the expertise, the intellectual property, entertainment, law, media. I had a great experience last few years teaching a course on media law and ethics and really talking about the role of journalism in our society and culture, and, and I talk about these things and think about them with respect to the podcasting community.

One of the things I think is a flaw in the podcasting world is that we have, it's a good thing and a bad thing. So many people coming into podcasting with no understanding of what journalism is, and yet they're doing these true crime shows, or they're investigating a story of some sort, but not doing it with journalistic know-how.

And so I, I want to share more of that and help people understand, but there's more to it than just find a nugget of something and share it with the world. 

[00:19:54] Louis Goodman: Yeah. Anyone who's listening to my podcast on any kinda regular basis knows that this is not journalism. This is Louis talking to his friends. 

[00:20:02] Gordon Firemark: Sure.

[00:20:02] Louis Goodman: Let's say you came into some real money, let's say three or four billion dollars. What, if anything, would you do differently in your life? 

[00:20:11] Gordon Firemark: In the moment in my life where retirement is an idea that appeals to me. It's a ways off with the three kids, not yet in college, but I think that with a big influx of money, I would probably semi-retire myself, focus on really only taking thing cases and clients that really appeal to me for whatever reason.

Maybe I would find myself tilting at windmills a little bit sometimes because I could afford to. But also I think I would focus more in on the teaching and speaking and sharing ideas and trying to change the world a little activism and advocacy out there I think would fulfill me. 

[00:20:46] Louis Goodman: Let's say you had a magic wand, there was one thing in the world that you could change the legal world, the world in general, the media world. What one thing would you like to wave your magic wand at and change? 

[00:20:59] Gordon Firemark: I think I'd want to find a way to restore trust and faith in our institutions and the people behind them. I think we're in a real trust desert right now, and I think it's honestly, part and parcel of many of the problems we're experiencing in America right now is nobody knows who to trust and nobody's willing to listen very much.

I'm extraordinarily troubled, by the way. Politics have led to a downfall of democratic values in a lot of ways. 

[00:21:30] Louis Goodman: What if you had a Super Bowl ad, someone gave you 60 seconds on the Super Bowl to put out any message, advertisement, whatever you wanted to for a 60 second Super Bowl ad that would be heard and seen, obviously by an enormous audience. Mm-hmm. What would you like to say to that enormous audience? 

[00:21:50] Gordon Firemark: I think I'd like to ask everybody to remember that we're all in this together. And that what's good for the greater good is good for us all. That's not just about me. It's not just about you. It's not just about any one person's interest or even one group's interest, but we really need to think, and maybe it's Pollyanna of me to say this, but let's do what's right for the world and the rest of it will shake out. We'll figure it out.

[00:22:17] Louis Goodman: If someone wants to contact you, someone wants to get in touch with Gordon Firemark. Yeah, what's the best way to do that? 

[00:22:28] Gordon Firemark: I'm fortunate to have a distinctive name. F-I-R-E-M-A-R k.com is the place for the law firm website and my full name, Gordon Firemark.com for all the other stuff that I do. And so you can find me there and follow me on socials G Firemark. 

[00:22:43] Louis Goodman: And I would imagine if we just type in Gordon Firemark attorney LA you. 

[00:22:51] Gordon Firemark: Oh, you'll find me. 

[00:22:51] Louis Goodman: Will come right up. 

[00:22:53] Gordon Firemark: Yeah. Pretty prolific online presence these days. You'll find me in an insurance company in references to the bronze fire markers that were used to identify homes by their insurance companies back in the 19th century. 

[00:23:07] Louis Goodman: Yeah, that's a, that, that's a great thing. I've, it's just one of those little things about insurance that I found out recently by listening to a podcast about insurance. Yeah. And they talked about these fire marks. Tell us just really quickly, what's, what were the fire marks and how did that work with insurance?

[00:23:24] Gordon Firemark: The story I was told growing up is that in, in the 18th century post, post, the big London fire. Their, the emergence of fire insurance companies came up and there were fire brigades that were run by the insurance companies, and so they would give the, their customers this bronze medallion to put on the lentil of their front door.

That would tell the fire brigade, okay, yes, this one is covered by your insurance, so go ahead and put out the fire. And the, I guess the theory was if you didn't have the right insurance, they didn't put out your fire. I've learned recently that wasn't exactly the case, but that it was to identify this house has insurance, so we're gonna take care of it.

And so those bronze markers have become collectors items. My mom has a collection of them hanging on the wall in her living room and uh, it's just a fun little bit of historical trivia. We don't know where we got the name Firemark, exactly. My great-great-grandfather who I refer to as great-Grandpa Tevya from the old country, came over in the pre-1900 diaspora and they gave him a new name if they couldn't pronounce your new name, your correct name on the third try, you got a new name and Firemark was it, so. 

[00:24:31] Louis Goodman: Is there anything that you'd like to talk about that we haven't discussed? Anything at all that you'd like to bring up, talk about? 

[00:24:39] Gordon Firemark: I think we've covered a lot. I guess what I would like people to take away is that being a lawyer is a responsibility, and it's not just a responsibility to serve our clients with zeal and integrity and all of that, but I think we also all have an obligation to give something back to the society and the world and the system that has allowed us to do what we do and make a nice living doing it and all of that.

And so whether that's pro bono or teaching or volunteering at the community center or something, I would encourage all lawyers to find something that they can find rewarding in a way of giving back that isn't just about making money or just being a lawyer all the time and have the good life by doing good for others.

[00:25:21] Louis Goodman: Gordon Firemark, thank you so much for joining me today on the Love Thy Lawyer Podcast. It's been a pleasure to talk to you. 

[00:25:28] Gordon Firemark: Thank you, Louis. It's been fun. 

[00:25:31]Louis Goodman: That's it for today's episode of Love Thy Lawyer. If you enjoyed listening, please share it with a friend and follow the podcast. If you have comments or suggestions, send me an email. Take a look at our website at lovethylawyer.com, where you can find all of our episodes, transcripts, photographs and information.

Thanks to my guests, and to Joel Katz for music, Bryan Matheson for technical support, Paul Robert for social media and Tracy Harvey. I'm Louis Goodman.

[00:26:07] Gordon Firemark: I like the sound of my own voice.