Revealed: Billboard’s 2019 Top Music Lawyers

UC Davis School of Law

Frank has brought legal guidance to hitmaking collaborations: Zedd, Maren Morris and Grey’s “The Middle”; Skrillex and Poo Bear’s “Would You Ever”; and BTS’ “Waste It on Me” featuring Steve Aoki. She also advises Metallica and negotiated Skrillex’s Las Vegas residency.

Before the Music Modernization Act ensured that songwriters would get paid by streaming services (and ensured that songwriters would no longer sue streaming services), Gradstein, 63, filed a class action against Spotify. In May 2018, “we settled it for roughly $100 million,” he says. “That money will be paid out to songwriters and not-large publishing companies.” The window for claims opened in May.

University of California, Los Angeles, School of Law

King brought an end to the multiyear legal dispute between Lil Wayne and Cash Money Records; helped secure “a fairly life-changing amount of money” for Wayne, he says; and cleared the way for the release of the artist’s fourth No. 1 album, Tha Carter V, in October 2018.

University of California, Los Angeles, School of Law

Paterno, 67, helped Pharrell Williams and his team launch the Something in the Water festival and reps Game of Thrones composer Ramin Djawadi. Paterno offers perspective on high-priced music publishing catalog deals in the streaming age: “If you’ve got 100 million [streaming service] subscribers today and you buy a catalog at some crazy 20-multiple [of its valuation], and in three years there are 300 million [streaming] subscribers, all of a sudden [a high price] doesn’t look so crazy anymore.”

UC Davis School of Law

Says Soriano: “It has been a busy year for my clients,” with Travis Scott, twenty one pilots and rapper NF releasing new albums, and Karen O collaborating with Danger Mouse on Lux Prima. Soriano also works with Jane Petty to protect her ownership rights to songs and recordings created (through 1996) by her late ex-husband, Tom Petty.