Encino Resident Named Entertainment Lawyer of the Year

Encino's Ken Kleinberg, founding partner of Kleinberg Lopez Lange Cuddy & Klein LLP, was named 2011 Entertainment Lawyer of the Year by the Beverly Hills Bar Association at an annual awards dinner on April 27 at the Beverly Hills Hotel.

"[Kleinberg has made] a tremendous contribution to the both the profession and the community," Neville Johnson, who chaired the event, said in a news release. "He is widely regarded for his broad experience in international entertainment law transactions [...] He understands transactions from the point of view of owner-entrepreneurs, as well as talent.”  

The Entertainment Lawyer of the Year Award honors leaders of the entertainment law field for their contributions to the profession and has been presented annually since 1989 by the BHBA, which has the largest entertainment law section of any bar association in the world.

Kleinberg specializes in business negotiations and legal matters for a wide variety of prominent individuals and companies, including some of the industry’s most iconic actors, writers, authors, directors, producers, entrepreneurs, musicians, animators and more. Kleinberg clients that showed up at the awards dinner included Natalie Cole, Peter Cetera and members of the band Chicago.

Before joining Kleinberg Lopez Lange Cuddy & Klein LLP, Kleinberg was a longtime partner and head of the motion picture/TV division of Mitchell, Silberberg & Knupp. He then served as a senior executive of United Artists Corporation, and then as President and Chief Operating Officer of Weintraub Entertainment Group, an independent motion picture, television and music production/distribution company. 

Kleinberg has been recognized numerous times by industry trade publications as one of the leading attorneys in the transactional entertainment law field. In 2007, 2008, and again in 2009, The Hollywood Reporter named Kleinberg one of the “Power Lawyers” in the entertainment industry, and in 2008 Daily Variety named him among its top dealmakers in its “Dealmakers Impact Report ’08″, and Kleinberg was named a 2008 and 2009 “Southern California Super Lawyer” in the field of entertainment and sports law.

Since 2002, Kleinberg, a graduate of UCLA and UCLA School of Law, has served as president of the University Kidney Research Organization, a non-profit group he founded that raises funds for kidney disease research.

In the field of entertainment, Kleinberg served as the first chairman of and remains active on the board of the American Cinematheque; was a longtime member of the planning committee for the USC Entertainment Law Institute and presently serves on a similar committee for UCLA; taught two years at the American Film Institute; and participates regularly in legal continuing education programs.