Fashion Doesn't Happen Overnight

Robert was the youngest graduate of his class at Southwestern Law School, a historic Los Angeles landmark pictured in the background. He has been the recipient of several legal awards, including the Witkin Award for Academic Excellence, the Wildman & Schumacher Scholarship, and the Edna Kraemer Dunlap Scholarship.  Robert is also certified as a professional LexisNexis and WestlawNext researcher. He earned his Bachelor of Arts cum laude from UCLA with a major in political science.

Robert’s primary focus is drafting, editing, and negotiating contractual agreements. He has a passion for intellectual property (IP) law, which encompasses copyrights, trademarks, and patents.   Most notably, Robert interned for the Sherman Oaks law firm Stubbs Alderton & Markiles, LLP, which served as counsel to such clients as Skype, Mad Dogg Athletics, Beats by Dre, and Rdio.  Robert subsequently interned with Mad Dogg Athletics, where he worked on trademark enforcement and other intellectual property issues pertaining to their world-famous Spinning brands of exercise classes and equipment.

When he’s not fighting to rid the world of unfashionable injustice, Robert enjoys pondering meaningful things, developing websites, playing guitar, building computers, and managing investment portfolios. He also holds a California Department of Real Estate Broker License, a California Notary Public Commission, and certification from the Association of Anti-Money Laundering Specialists (ACAMS).

   


I busted a mirror and got seven years bad luck, but my lawyer thinks he can get me five.

— Steven Wright —

Contracts

In his very first contract case, Robert obtained a $47,668.00 award for a business client pursuant to court judgment.  Since then, he has garnered ample experience drafting and reviewing contracts in many areas, including but not limited to business operating agreements, licensing, tenancy/leasing, real estate purchases, and employment.

All business is done by contract or by implication thereof.  A contract is a promise or a set of promises for the breach of which the law gives a remedy, or the performance of which the law in some way recognizes as a duty.  Contracts are often ridden with problematic verbiage, especially when left unreviewed by counsel.  Here are three examples of fashion failure:

  • Client will pay Robert a suitable amount to review Client’s contract.

    — Material Ambiguity: What exactly is considered SUITABLE? —
  • Client will pay Assassin $9000 to murder Client’s abomination of a spouse.

    — Illegality: The payment amount is clear this time, but contract law will not recognize criminal performance as a duty. —
  • Spouse One promises Spouse Two never to ask Spouse Two for child support after divorce.

    — Public Policy Issues: First, this is against society's interest in raising children. Second, this is against the child's interest as a third party. —



A contract is a testament to the personal or corporate integrity of an entity.  A poorly-written contract is not only a legal nightmare, but also an embarrassment.  It is the equivalent of wearing pajamas to a Presidential dinner.  If you don’t like the President, it is wiser to wear a suit to his party and disgrace him by consuming all his expensive food.  Similarly, if you’re at odds with the person on the other side of your contract, it is crucial not to be lackadaisical with the drafting and review of the agreement document.  Rather than expressing your dislike through apathetic contractual drafting, focus instead on how you can best take advantage of your arch nemesis to the full extent afforded by contract law.  Hire a lawyer to draft your agreement or to perform document review, and you’ll sleep better at night.

Intellectual Property

Intellectual Property (IP) is an umbrella term for trademarks, copyrights, and patents. Sometimes the protections offered by this trinity can overlap, but their differences are mostly clear:

Trademark law protects brand names, slogans, and logos.  Walmart and McDonald’s are not just the bastions of American hegemony–they are, in name and style, the “intellectual properties” of corporate America.  If you too boldly dream of one day owning your very own business that you have driven to success on the backs of minimum wage workers whose living incomes are subsidized by the Federal Government, it is crucial that you do not follow in the infringing footsteps of Mr. McDowell.  Robert has experience conducting trademark searches and registrations.

Copyright protects literature and audio/visuals, including your favorite films, photos, songs, and musical works.  This area of the law may come into play when people illegally download pornography.  There are criminal laws in place that make it illegal for children under 18 to be exposed to pornography, but there are also copyright laws in place that prohibit the viewing of pornography if it is obtained by illegal means irrespective of age, i.e. pirated rather than paid for.  It is of course more common to hear about porn lawsuits involving copyright infringement than ones involving illegal distribution of pornography to minors.  From a financial standpoint, it is easy to understand these unbalanced priorities.  Robert can help you register your copyright by filing a simple form and depositing one or two samples of the work (depending on what it is) with the U.S. Copyright Office.

Finally, patent law protects inventions like Viagra and designs like the Thong Diaper. (Oh, and let’s not forget about this gem that delivers babies through centrifugal force by spinning the mother in a circle.) However, if you are like Colonel Sanders or Robert Woodruff, you may wish to withhold your “herbs and spices” recipe as a trade secret by guarding it in a vault.  As long as your trade secret is not revealed to the general public, and as long as it isn’t subject to inevitable, independent discovery by equally-creative competition, you can forego revealing it publicly in an application for the limited 20-year duration of patent protection.  Thus, with patent law, one must consider the trade-off between maintaining a trade secret versus coming out of the closet with a patent application.

Contrary to the implications of the phrase, one need not exercise much intellect to get the protections of “intellectual” property law.  Indeed, the Supreme Court once said originality in the copyright context requires merely a “modicum of creativity.”  Now get out there and make your Uncle Sam proud!

Personal Injury

Everyone knows about this one.  A lot of lawyers will try to sub-categorize this area of the law so their websites get greater keyword visibility on search engines. Their regular list of lingo goes along the lines of dog bites, motorcycle accidents, slip and falls, car accidents, wrongful death, drain bamage… you get the point.  It’s all the same thing–PERSONAL INJURY (PI)!  You start with an insurance claim, and if you’re unable to settle with insurance or if insurance coverage is lacking, the next stage is litigation: filing a lawsuit in court and performing discovery, i.e., long exchanges of written and oral information between the two parties involved in the accident.  Of course, many other categories of the law involve these same concepts, but the two-step “Insurance, then litigation” process is supremely prevalent in PI.

40% -- PI Cases Accepted
100% -- PI Cases Settled
60 -- Average Lawyer IQ

As the dollar outcome of each PI case is heavily fact-centric, Robert is unashamedly selective about which cases he will accept.  Unfortunately, and based on prior statistics, Robert is more likely to reject prospective PI cases than to accept them.  Still, consultations by appointment are welcome.

Estate Planning

You may not be planning to die, but it is imperative that you be dying to plan. To exit this world fashionably means to continue controlling the realm of the living by calling the shots from your grave.  Robert’s proudest moment was a pro bono opportunity to successfully draft a will and trust combo for an honorable 93-year-old Holocaust survivor back in December 2014.

A trust is a relationship whereby property is held by one party for the benefit of another. A trust is created by a “settlor,” who transfers some or all of his or her property to a trustee. The trustee holds that property for the trust’s beneficiaries. The trustee is given legal title to the trust property, but is obligated to act for the good of the beneficiaries. For a cool example, check out the Getty Trust–the world’s wealthiest art institution!

Trusts are frequently created in wills, defining how money and property will be handled for children or other beneficiaries. A will is created when the declarant of the will, the testator, names one or more persons to manage his or her estate and provides for the distribution of his property at death.  For instance, if you are like William Shakespeare, you may opt to leave only your second best bed for your beloved wife.

A will may also contain funeral and burial instructions.  It could come useful in avoiding situations such as this:


I’ve had so much plastic surgery, when I die they will donate my body to Tupperware.

— Joan Rivers —

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