On Entertainment Law and Hollywood Legends with Attorney Clair Burrill

In this episode of Talking Book Publishing, hosts Kathleen and Adanna sit down with renowned entertainment attorney Clair Burrill, whose new book Attorney to the Stars offers an inside look into his decades-long career representing some of the biggest names in music, film, and television. From his early days as a musician to becoming a top entertainment lawyer, Clair shares captivating stories about his clients, including John Candy, Robin Williams, Waylon Jennings, and The Rolling Stones.

Beyond the celebrity encounters, Clair opens up about turning his career and personal experiences into a book. He talks about how storytelling became a passion, the challenges of writing, and why he structured the book the way he did. For aspiring authors, his journey from legal briefs to memoir writing offers valuable lessons.

Plus, for a limited time, Attorney to the Stars will be available as a free eBook on Amazon from March 14 for five days—so don't miss your chance to grab a copy! Whether you're a fan of Hollywood history, music industry secrets, or legal drama, this is a packed episode with fascinating anecdotes and invaluable insights.

We’d like to hear from you. If you have topics or speakers you’d like us to interview, please email us at podcast@talkingbookpublishing.today and join the conversation in the comments on our Instagram @writerspubsnet.

Transcript

00:00:03 SPEAKER_01
Hello and welcome to Talking Book Publishing. I'm Kathleen Kaiser along with my co -host Adana Moriarty and today we have a wonderful guest with Claire Burrell. His book is Attorney to the Stars and he has some of the most interesting stories about his many clients. Mostly based on the West Coast, but they were in film and music. And he also had people in Nashville and other parts of the country. But he has this really charming book with the insights. And it also talks about his life and golf and some other things. But it all rhymes together and becomes a really interesting story. Little tidbits, little things you don't know from the world. of entertainment from the eyes of their attorney. So welcome, Claire.

00:00:56 SPEAKER_00
Thank you very much, Kathleen.

00:00:57 SPEAKER_01
We're glad to have you. So tell us, how did you get started? I mean, you became a lawyer. How did you get started in entertainment law?

00:01:08 SPEAKER_00
It all goes back to the fact that I played in several rock bands. And when I went off to college, I thought, well, that's the end of my rock band career. I'm going to have to study hard. And I was challenged in college and so forth. And lo and behold, I wasn't there for more than a semester. I saw these other bands playing around and for dances and so forth and mixers, they call them. And so I decided to get my band, try to get a band together. It happened. I continued my interest in music in particular. And one of my... members of one of my bands, one of my groups when I was at Harvard, went off and graduated the year before I did. And he wound up going to law school and winding up in a New York law firm that specialized in entertainment and with a focus on music. And long story short, I reconnected with him when he relocated and started an office in California. I called him up and we got together. I moved to California with my family and went into the entertainment law business.

00:02:23 SPEAKER_01
And you didn't leave, did you?

00:02:26 SPEAKER_00
Still doing it.

00:02:29 SPEAKER_01
What aspects of entertainment law do you really like?

00:02:33 SPEAKER_00
I think that the whole challenge in the music business was my favorite. I mean, I've handled quite a few copyright infringement lawsuits. sales of copyright catalogs and so forth. But I also did a lot of work in the movie business as well as television.

00:02:57 SPEAKER_01
Yes. So who was one of your earliest clients that you took on that became your personal client?

00:03:05 SPEAKER_00
That would have to be John Candy. And in the book, I touch on how I fortuitously met John when he came to our office. one day looking for a lawyer. He didn't even have an appointment. Nobody really even knew who he was yet. He was just beginning to make the scene, if you will. He was on Second City TV in Canada, and then they moved it to New York and did it on NBC, and I worked with him from the beginning.

00:03:38 SPEAKER_01
Wow. What was it like taking someone who was new and one of your first clients? What was the learning curve like for you?

00:03:47 SPEAKER_00
Oh, it was immense. The learning curve was immense. Every single day, every single time we had any kind of encounter, it was a new challenge. It was something different and new for me to take care of or deal with and guide from a legal point of view to guide my clients.

00:04:11 SPEAKER_02
Is entertainment law more negotiating than it is if you were in some other kind of law practice? I mean, do you spend a lot of time kind of negotiating and just trying to close deals? I mean, what does that actually mean to be an entertainment lawyer?

00:04:31 SPEAKER_00
There's a lot of negotiation that goes into entertainment law for certain. The other arm is litigation, and there is some of that as well. But in my experience, there's times when you have to litigate and fight and spend energy and money when either your liberty is challenged,

00:04:48 SPEAKER_00
when you have to litigate and fight and spend energy and money when either your liberty is challenged, like if you're going to go to jail, or when your reputation is called into question. or besmirched. And so, and the third area would be copyright infringement litigation. I had a litigation partner in New York who used to say, you take everything you have, money, effort, aggression,

00:05:25 SPEAKER_00
if your liberty or your reputation is challenged or in jeopardy. Everything else, he said, is dollars and cents. And it comes down to settlement. How much is it going to cost me to defend myself as opposed to how much is it going to cost me just to settle this thing and get rid of it? But the two arms that I did the most were both negotiation of contracts and litigation.

00:05:54 SPEAKER_01
Did you ever find that you sort of got wandered off into their personal lives too?

00:06:01 SPEAKER_00
Absolutely. No question about it. And I was very fortunate, I think, because all of these people are people. And the bottom line, they're people. They were extremely talented in a particular area, but they're still basic human beings. So I treated them like human beings.

00:06:26 SPEAKER_00
And they respect that. And I was able to. get close to some of these people because I wouldn't hide anything. I would always tell the truth, even if it was bad news. And they respect that. They would rather you came forward and laid out everything that they have to know as opposed to, you know, hiding things or pretending it didn't exist or that you could get away with it, get rid of that phone.

00:07:00 SPEAKER_00
Sorry about that.

00:07:03 SPEAKER_01
We'll be able to work with that.

00:07:06 SPEAKER_02
Okay. Okay. So, I mean, we know you've had some really amazing clients. I mean,

00:07:15 SPEAKER_02
I mean, we know about John Candy. Do you want to share maybe some stories about some of the other ones that you represented over the years that, you know? maybe everybody knows or they were really, you know, important to you, like not just as a lawyer, but, you know, the cases that you represented for them and stuff like that.

00:07:38 SPEAKER_00
Well, yes, absolutely. There's no question about the fact that another very funny person and a great client that I got to know very well was Robin Williams. And he was a genius and he was a poet. An incredible imagination. Just no matter where you were with him, it could be lunch, it could be in a business meeting, it could be in his trailer on the Paramount lot. He always was on. He always had something funny to say. No matter what you said, he would turn it around into something humorous. I also was very fortunate to work with Waylon Jennings. Musician, extraordinary. songwriter, and just a great human being. And again, he was a very talented person, but a very level -headed human being. And he was not terribly caught up in himself. He presented himself through his music, and it was a pleasure to know him.

00:08:47 SPEAKER_01
What about some of your adventures with the Rolling Stones?

00:08:51 SPEAKER_00
I got into the situation

00:08:54 SPEAKER_00
with the Rolling Stones when I started practicing, actually, in California with my partner. And the challenge I had was to make sure that they were covered legally when they came into the United States, no matter where they were going to be performing, because every law enforcement agency in the United States wanted to arrest the Rolling Stones, no matter where they were.

00:09:03 SPEAKER_00
I had was to make sure that they were covered legally when they came into the United States, no matter where they were going to be performing, because every law enforcement agency in the United States wanted to arrest the Rolling Stones, no matter where they were.

00:09:25 SPEAKER_00
terrific lawyer who traveled with them. He was originally from Arkansas. He had been a member of the Secret Service when John Kennedy was president of the United States. And he had all kinds of contacts in Washington as a result. So when Keith Richards, a self -proclaimed heroin addict, wanted to come into the United States to make a million dollars, touring with the Rolling Stones. How do you get somebody like that into the United States? And Bill Carter was the guy. So he was on the tour, but I was in the office and we had a lot of coordination. But you can imagine every city they went to, part of Bill Carter's job was to make sure that law enforcement was kept at bay.

00:10:19 SPEAKER_02
That's quite a job.

00:10:21 SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it was.

00:10:21 SPEAKER_01
was. I didn't.

00:10:22 SPEAKER_02
Maybe I'm just too young to know better, but I guess I didn't realize that they were constantly under threat of being arrested when they were stateside.

00:10:32 SPEAKER_00
Yes. And the reason was that a lot of people thought they were evil, that they were druggies and they were espousing drug use and their music was all about, you know, dangerous, evil things and so forth. didn't get the music part and just thought these guys were not good people.

00:11:00 SPEAKER_01
I found Mick Jagger.

00:11:01 SPEAKER_00
found Mick

00:11:01 SPEAKER_02
Jagger. Go ahead, Adana. Oh, I said, well, they sure showed those people.

00:11:08 SPEAKER_00
Well, there was a time, there was a very serious problem that developed in Canada when Mick Jagger really was the brains of the organization. He was a very,

00:11:15 SPEAKER_00
Jagger really was the brains of the organization. He was a very, very good businessman. And Keith Richards was the music genius from the standpoint of creating music. Of course, Jagger was the performer in the front of the group, but he was also the leader. He was the businessman. And he decided at one particular point in time, I think it was around 1978 or so, that they were going to do some small clubs to do an album or a double -sided album. And they located a club in Toronto and they all came in independently, individually. And Keith flew in with his common law wife and unfortunately got stopped at the airport at customs because, believe it or not, she had 27 pieces of luggage. And he,

00:12:14 SPEAKER_00
Keith, was smart enough not to bring any. controlled substances onto the airplane with himself or his luggage. But when she showed up with all that luggage, it was a red flag. And the customs people went through the baggage. And unbeknownst to Keith, they found all kinds of paraphernalia, controlled substances, and so forth. Long story short, they wanted to put him in jail for life in Canada. We'll show him. away with it here and there and everywhere, but he won't get away with it here. It was a major, major problem. And again, but for Bill Carter being able to go up there and handle this and having his connections in Washington, D .C., maybe Keith Richards would have spent a lot of time in a Canadian prison.

00:13:09 SPEAKER_01
Was that Anita Pollenberg? Yes. Yeah, that's what I thought. She was a character.

00:13:17 SPEAKER_00
Yes, indeed.

00:13:20 SPEAKER_02
So how does that work, though? I mean, you guys are American lawyers. How do you navigate another country's legal system like that?

00:13:32 SPEAKER_00
The interesting thing is that Bill Carter was able to call high -level, heavy -hitting people in Washington. And they would call the Canadian people, for example. And basically, the other thing that the stores were planning on doing in 75 was to do a tour of the Americas, including South America and Central America. And because of some of the problems that might have existed there legally, they canceled all those dates and just added more dates in the United States.

00:14:11 SPEAKER_01
Interesting. Yeah. You also did a lot with Bill Withers, who was an incredible singer -songwriter. Right. And you guys became, in the book, and I'm sure it's true from what things I've talked with you about, that he became a really dear friend. And you paint such a wonderful portrait of him. I knew who he was when I worked in the music business, and I had seen him perform himself. And you gave me a different insight to him as a person.

00:14:41 SPEAKER_00
He was a very, very special person. He was very personable, not necessarily easy to get close to. But once you were there, once you got close to him, it was like your best friend. I mean, a very, very good friend. And he opened up. We had a tremendous amount of interplay back and forth. I got to spend a lot of time with him personally. I mean, some of the clients that I've worked with. I spent a lot of time on the phone with them, but some of the others I was very close to personally. I mentioned Will and Jennings. He insisted that I go on a tour with him to Europe. He wanted me to be along. He said, well, I never know what's going to happen. I want you to be there. And Bill Withers was a genius songwriter, but he also had a fantastic sense of humor. He was a great speaker. People would call upon him to speak at conventions and get -togethers and honorariums and so forth. He was a very brilliant man, very, very smart, very talented. And he got to the point where he was successful enough that he could just stop doing what he was doing because he chose not to continue doing a lot of things. the entertainment business and just relax and take some time to himself. He got a little bit upset with, I would say upset with the higher ups, the executives in the recording business. And so he just said, well, I've done enough recording. I don't need to do it anymore. He did a bunch of concerts and then after a while said, you know, I don't really have to do that anymore. So he had a lot of personal time. And that's I was able to help him in a variety of different ways. He got sued once. I represented him and defended him. He got sued again. I represented him. And we spent a lot of time together. Then he came up with a claim of copyright infringement of ripping off one of his songs. And so I got involved with that. And those are real personal things because he's concerned about his own talent and his own creations.

00:17:06 SPEAKER_01
Yes, the stealing of music, I, you know, it's kind of a strange thing, you know, because I don't know if people purposely go out to do it, but they've probably heard it. And if you've heard and you don't maybe consciously or unconsciously, I've heard both sides of the story, but it's out there and it's been copywritten. And why isn't someone checking that out when they go ahead and especially when they a band has a huge hit based off of somebody else's music?

00:17:36 SPEAKER_00
And there's not an easy answer to that, except I just think they think they can get away with it. There's a situation, for example, when somebody used somebody else's music.

00:17:49 SPEAKER_00
somebody else's music. I'll just leave the names out for now, but some of it's in the book. Somebody uses somebody else's music, so they take it and they change it, and they think they change it enough so it's not recognizable. There are experts out there that do exactly this. They're called musicologists. They look into the creation. They have a variety of different ways of analyzing the music. And now in all the technology, there's a plethora of these situations, particularly now you add AI into the situation. I got a call just the other day that said somebody is. using AI to imitate Bill Withers voice. That stuff is, it just, they think they can get away with it.

00:18:46 SPEAKER_02
I want to talk about like the actual writing of the book, because I mean, you know, you've had an amazing career and like, that's so obvious. And just having a conversation with you, you know, on, on a podcast or personally, I mean, Your life has been so interesting, but taking that and turning it into a book, I mean, not everybody's capable of doing that because writing is hard. I mean, and the discipline to write and, you know, start and finish is hard. So when did you know that you wanted to take your career and your life and turn it into a memoir?

00:19:24 SPEAKER_00
It all started, oh, I would say six, seven years ago. some kind of social situation or a family situation. And I would share a story that something maybe occurred in my life in the entertainment business or not. Another story about this or that. And eventually, several people, including members of my family, said, you know, you should write some of this stuff down. So it began by my putting things down actually for my children. And then that became challenging.

00:20:02 SPEAKER_00
but interesting and eventually fun. And so I kept doing it. I said, oh yeah, here's another little tidbit that I could put down. And the book is divided up into many small chapters. I don't believe that any one of the chapters runs over 12, 14 pages. All the rest are very short because I just wanted to hit the main point of whatever it was that was involved in that experience and put it down. And I had a tremendous amount of fun doing it once I got going.

00:20:40 SPEAKER_02
So how long did it actually take you? I mean, once you really got going and you were like, all right, I'm not just writing down bits and pieces. I'm going to write a book. I mean, what did that process look like?

00:20:54 SPEAKER_00
It started out with my thinking.

00:20:58 SPEAKER_00
I originally was thinking I was going to write a novel, realized how difficult that is. And I noticed in reading novels that I like to do that some of them are based on personal experience, even though eventually it is fiction. There is some experiential material. So I thought I could do that. And it turned out to be a very, very arduous task. So then I switched over and said, you know, I don't have to create some imaginative story.

00:21:33 SPEAKER_00
imaginative story. I have a story, a story of what I've been able to do and be exposed to and people I've known and things I've done. I'll write about that. And so I started putting it down.

00:21:57 SPEAKER_00
I needed to put it all into some coherent manuscript. And then I started doing that. And I worked on the chapters and edited them and edited them over and over. And while I'm doing one, something would trigger another thing that would lead to another chapter.

00:22:19 SPEAKER_02
That's how it always goes. So, I mean, as a lawyer, I mean, you probably had to write. briefs and stuff all the time so I mean it's very different writing to write creatively than it is to write like from a business or like a law place did you did you take classes or did you just like went with it I mean you're a storyteller kind of by nature just in talking to you so I mean I'm just kind of curious and I think it's helpful for our listeners you know to get into the process of that because you know it is a big switch from the day -to -day of like being a lawyer, to going, I'm going to write a book.

00:23:01 SPEAKER_00
Well, you're absolutely right. And what I can say to that is there came a time when I just felt like I need to put this stuff down. Did I take any classes? No. Did I take any legal writing classes? No. It all came basically from exposure. things I learned and picked up from other people. And just for example, you know, I told someone the other day, spent three years in law school, but I didn't really learn anything about the law until I started working in the law. You know, I learned more in the first year after I graduated than I did the three years of reading books. It was necessary, the preparation for the experience, but the experience was where the learning took place.

00:23:55 SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I think it's I think that's almost with any job, though, unless maybe a doctor, you know, things come at you. They can't put in a book, you know, and unless your teacher had told you in a lecture about an experience on this type of thing, you know, it's all new. So you just have to sort of run with it, I think.

00:24:17 SPEAKER_00
That's true. And even with doctors, I spoke to a doctor the other day and he said. We were sharing the same kind of information. And he said, you're absolutely right. He said,

00:24:28 SPEAKER_00
right. He said, I did well in medical school. But when I really learned about medicine is when I went into residency. And that's that get out of school and go to work. And be thrown in the trench, so to speak. And that's when you learn. Same thing in the law business. You wind up in a law firm somewhere and there's a whole lot of experience around you and they want you to become just as experienced as they are. And so that's where it goes to.

00:25:02 SPEAKER_01
That's one thing I think if you're thinking about a career, it doesn't hurt before you fully commit to as well, you're working on your undergraduate degree. If you can get an internship, see what it's like.

00:25:18 SPEAKER_00
Right. I didn't have any of that. Unfortunately, I just got, again, thrown into the trenches coming out of law school. But I had some experience like the military was very helpful. I spent four years in the military. It was very helpful in framing, you know, where I was going to go and what I was going to do.

00:25:41 SPEAKER_01
Yeah, it's all part of the learning process of that. And then taking it back and looking back on it to write about it. Did you remember some things? Or as you sort of said, you were writing and then something else would come to mind. Did some things come back up you had really sort of consciously forgotten about?

00:26:03 SPEAKER_00
I think so, yes. And what would happen is I would start writing about something that I did. early on with robin williams for example and then when i started writing about something else and it may have even been something personal i would remember oh yeah and then there was that time when when i went to san francisco and he was on the stage and he did this improv and so forth and that would trigger some other things that i would get out the computer and start jotting it down

00:26:36 SPEAKER_01
That's always good to be able to do that. One story that I had heard about rumors about many years ago, but you really played it out on what was going on with Mick Jaggers when he was touring and that woman was trying to sue him. I thought that was very clever how you skirted around that. It was the interesting thing is that when.

00:27:00 SPEAKER_00
interesting thing is that when. The Rolling Stones came into the United States to tour. It was very, very important for them because it was a huge money -making concert tour. And they knew that they had exposure in a variety of different ways from their well -known drug use, especially with Keith, for example. And, you know, I mean, Mick Jagger, there was no secret about the fact that he had a lot of women in his life. He also had a lot of children from a variety of different women. And it wasn't unusual for someone to wait until he came into their area to go after him,

00:27:46 SPEAKER_00
came into their area

00:27:50 SPEAKER_00
go after him, as opposed to chasing him down in the UK. So there was a woman in Southern California who claimed that he was the father of one of her children, and we got involved. But the interesting thing is they were trying to, she and her attorneys, were trying to tie up the money as a leverage point, trying to tie up the money in the box office at one of the venues in Costa Mesa, California. And the money that comes into the concert...

00:28:28 SPEAKER_00
money that comes into the concert... Doesn't have Mick Jagger's name on it. It doesn't have the Rolling Stones name on it. It is all through a variety of corporations, organizations and foundations. They had a financial wizard by the name of Prince Rupert Lowenstein, who took care of these things for him. And he was a genius. I mean, the money would go from the box office in Costa Mesa, California. to some offshore corporation, which then would send it to a Belgian Anstalt,

00:29:05 SPEAKER_00
which would then move it on to a foundation in Liechtenstein. And so it was relatively easy for me to go down and demonstrate to the court that none of the money is going to Mick Jagger. It's going to Sunday promotions.

00:29:26 SPEAKER_01
Did she follow you around the country? I can't remember.

00:29:30 SPEAKER_00
What's that?

00:29:31 SPEAKER_01
Didn't she follow or they try that in a couple of different cities?

00:29:35 SPEAKER_00
I'm not aware that it was done anywhere but in Southern California. That's the one that I was involved with. I don't think that she was involved in anyone other than that. Once we cut off the possibility that she could reach the money, she basically gave up. And by the time we were able to do that, well, Mick was back in the UK.

00:29:58 SPEAKER_02
How would somebody, I mean, then prove that a child was somebody's child? I mean, today we can do it through, you know, like paternity tests and stuff like that. But I mean, you couldn't do that in like the 60s and 70s, right?

00:30:14 SPEAKER_00
We have DNA today, which is, you know, almost 100%. In those days, it was all done by blood sampling. and matching blood from the child to the alleged parents, whoever they might be, the mother obvious, the father. And the accuracy of the blood type was far less than 90%. So it was a difficult thing, but you either are in the zone of possibly being the parent or out of the zone. For example, if... If the child's blood was O and yours was AB, I mean, you're out. But if the child's blood is O and your blood is O, you're in. And so, but you're in with a whole bunch of other O's.

00:31:05 SPEAKER_02
Right. Well, and like, I mean, my mom is O and I'm AB positive. And I think my dad was A or B, but not both. And my sister's B and you know what I mean? I mean, I feel like. I feel like that is a real inaccurate way to determine anything.

00:31:25 SPEAKER_00
Well, then, you know, let's say that the man is tested and is in the group.

00:31:33 SPEAKER_00
in the group. He's in the zone. The child is O. He is O. O positive, O positive. But there's all these other people. Now the next question is opportunity. Has this person ever been? in any sort of relationship or environment with the other person. So you have to prove that, okay, you're an O and the baby's an O, but I don't even know you. I've never seen you before in my life. I don't know. Maybe you're just cooking this up to get some money from me.

00:32:08 SPEAKER_02
Well, and I would think with someone like Mick Jagger, that happened a lot. I mean, yes, he had a lot of kids, but also... Maybe not.

00:32:20 SPEAKER_00
Well, we'll never know for sure, and I'm sure he's not going to talk about it.

00:32:23 SPEAKER_01
No. With all of the people that you worked with, Claire, how many of them really did you admire? Did you admire all of them, or did you just work with some of them?

00:32:39 SPEAKER_00
All of them. I mean, it's not a real, real long list. of people, but the people that I did work with, I got close to. I was very fortunate to not only be an advocate, but I believe a friend. And when those opportunities presented himself, I took advantage of him because it was good to know that I could have a one -on -one conversation with a very interesting person who's talented in a particular way and just talk about ordinary things. Not legal, not career, but just everyday things. You know, like I said before, they're all human beings. And they all come down to that common denominator of, you know, wanting to know other people, like other people, be with other people, right?

00:33:35 SPEAKER_01
That happens. That really happens.

00:33:38 SPEAKER_02
Well, I think, I mean, I think Claire's life has been... really fascinating and being able to put it into a book and let other people read about, you know, your encounters. And I mean, it's not just celebrities. I mean, you know, you've led a full life. So, I mean, the book is obviously has, you know, has more than just this celebrity, this celebrity, this celebrity. And, you know, there's, there's a whole story there for people to read. I don't know. I enjoy talking with Claire because I think he always has something interesting to say.

00:34:16 SPEAKER_00
Thank you for that.

00:34:18 SPEAKER_01
Yes. Well, for everyone who is listening, Claire's book, Attorney to the Stars, it's released March 13th and for five days afterwards is going to be a free e -book download on Amazon. So check that out. And then for the rest of the month, the e -book is going to be 99 cents. But I think that you will really enjoy it and have fun reading through the stories. Lots of great pictures in the book, too. He has photos with every chapter. So you get a little more of an insight of who these people were when he knew them. I think that's a great thing. But well, thank you, Claire, very much for joining us today for Talking Book Publishing. and sharing your story and being an attorney to the stars.

00:35:09 SPEAKER_00
You're more than welcome. Thank you. Okay.