Yaphett K. Powell is Special Counsel in the Firm’s Los Angeles office and a member of the Intellectual Property practice group and Co-Chair of the Firm’s Entertainment Industry Group. With a career spanning over 25 years, he has experience in film, television, streaming, music, sports, video games, book publishing, social media, and entertainment deals and transactions across the U.S., EMEA, Asia-Pacific, and Latin America.
As a niche within his broader practice, he focuses on film finance, where he brings a rare combination of experience: eight years as a corporate attorney handling U.S. and international venture financing, capital markets, securities offerings, and M&A transactions at major law firms and fifteen years as a studio business affairs attorney handling U.S. and international development, production, and distribution deals at global Hollywood studios, including Disney and Fox. Today, he advises producers, creators, investors, and financiers on structuring, financing, producing, and distributing films, from the investor capital raise through worldwide distribution. His strengths include negotiating and closing complex and strategic deals, leading high-performing legal teams, and protecting his clients’ legal rights and interests.
He is an academic leader and serves as Director of the Entertainment & Media Law Institute and an Associate Clinical Professor of Law at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. He holds an M.B.A. with a focus in Finance from the UCLA Anderson School of Management, a J.D. from the University of Miami School of Law, and a B.S. from the University of Florida.