VP, Business and Legal Affairs

Senior-level attorney position in MTV’s Business and Legal Affairs department to provide day-to-day business and legal affairs services for MTV-branded programming, with a focus on original development and production.  This position will be located in Santa Monica, California.  This person will be expected to be an operational leader on high-level deals and projects and handle a heavy volume of development and production matters relating to both network and studio businesses and the production of original programming both “in-house” and through third party production companies.  MTV’s business and legal affairs department handles development and production work for both scripted and unscripted programming and works closely with MTV’s Development and Production Management teams as well as many other network departments (including Programming, Talent, Publicity, Music & Media Licensing, Labor & Employment, Risk Management, Pre-Broadcast Content Review, Intellectual Property & Litigation, Connected Content and Accounting/Finance).

Primary duties will include

-- Structuring, negotiating and drafting complex development and production deals and agreements (e.g.,rights acquisition, producer, writer, production services, and talent agreements, format licenses, venue and location releases, etc.)
-- Performing and/or supervising day-to-day legal production work for presentations, pilots, specials and series, and advising and consulting with clients and outside production companies regarding production-related legal matters (including guild, union and other employment law issues)
-- Reviewing and approving legal contracts for execution by MTV management; leading and/or engaging in strategic deal discussions and researching relevant business and legal issues
-- Providing complex risk assessment for production-related matters; advising and communicating with various other departments within Viacom Media Networks regarding exploitation of original programming across all media platforms; counseling the client groups on a wide variety of other legal matters, including guild/union and labor issues, intellectual property rights, off-channel marketing and promotions, insurance, product integrations, online and music issues
-- Performing other day-to-day business and legal affairs-related tasks as needed and assigned by MTV’s business and legal affairs department heads and senior executives.

Required Education & Qualifications/Skills:  

-- Must be members of the New York and/or California Bar(s) with 10-15 years of relevant experience (ideally in a network, studio, entertainment law firm or production company environment).
-- Comprehensive working knowledge of television industry agreements, guild and union regulations (WGA, DGA and SAG-AFTRA), contract law and intellectual property rights (as applicable to the entertainment industry) is required, along with mastered capability for legal research, analysis and reasoning.
-- Excellent drafting, negotiation, communication (written and verbal), interpersonal, organizational and computer skills are also a must.
-- Have a thorough understanding of entertainment industry customs and practices and possess demonstrated ability to effectively negotiate and interact with agents, managers and outside attorneys.
-- Must be able to multi-task under pressure, manage a varied, high-volume workload efficiently and smoothly, operate autonomously within corporate parameters and work long hours as necessary.  A vice-president is expected to be able to build strong internal client relationships, effectively advise senior-level executives under conditions of uncertainty, high-pressure and/or high-risk and generate strong client satisfaction through strategic thinking and firm decision-making.
-- Should have management experience and expertise, as he/she may be required to supervise and/or train junior executives, contract managers and/or legal assistants.  MTV’s business and legal affairs department works as a team in a highly collaborative manner.  The ideal candidate will have a cooperative, positive, team-oriented spirit.

For more information: https://www.linkedin.com/jobs2/view/18719309