HATTIE: The role of mentors or advisers, that's been really important to you.
LINDA: It's been really important to me throughout my entire life. That was a critical phone call for me because here's somebody who'd been enormously successful in the entertainment business, and here I am saying I'm the 20-year-old female. I have some experience in the music business. This is where I am. I don't know really where I want to go with it. He said, `Go to law school.' Education is critical, and education is power.
Man #1: When I need a decision, like if I'm thinking, `Should I go with this guy? Should I not go with this guy? Is this guy going to screw me over? Is it going to work? Is it a dead end? Am I, you know, flogging myself to death?' I'll ask Linda because Linda is ultimately and infinitely fair and will, like, talk you through every avenue. And it's like somebody shedding a different light on it.
HATTIE: (Voiceover) Allen Davis is a film composer lawyer.
How important is music to the film?
ALLEN DAVIS (Attorney, Garben, Davis & Benjamin): The music brings so much to a film, in terms of atmosphere, in terms of--you know, all the time I'll see--you know, I'll be representing a composer, for example, or someone that might be interested in acquiring a soundtrack album. And we'll see the film at the stage before they've got the music in it and if you're not used to that, the films are--you could see the best film without the music in it and you'd come out of there and say, `Ech!'
(Voiceover) For example, Louis Backeroft, who won the Oscar for "Opus Tina," fantastic score.
HATTIE: Oh, loved the...
ALLEN: I mean, it's a score--you know, and this is why it's so great. I mean, what's the importance of film music? If you've seen that film, and you listen to that scene, you'll probably cry. Just did--and John Ottman, who's done films--and, of course, a big film he did called, "The Usual Suspects."
This client was referred to me. It's a Swiss quintet, East Helanistie, that have had a big recording career in Europe. And they were approached to record the music, the ship's orchestra music, for the film "Titantic," but it turned out they hadn't cast the screen roles. And these guys aren't actors, they're musicians. But, you know, who better to play the ship's orchestra than this great quintet? And so we actually got them cast in the screen roles for the film.
I'd known Linda for four years before we formed a partnership, and she was my first partner. And I knew that she had tremendous skills in the area of getting out and talking to people. I can go to a party, or a social function, or a professional function and maybe I'll talk to two or three people in two hours and I'll just focus on those people. That's what I feel more comfortable with. Linda will cover a room of 100 people in 10 minutes, you know. So to have--so you look for people that have a skill that complements what you bring to the table.
HATTIE: So when did you find Allen and how did you get over the fear of starting off on your own?
LINDA: Fear's not something that is part of my vocabulary.
I'm just--I've never been afraid of anything. I've never known that I can't do anything. So maybe that's blind, at some points, but I just do things. So I saw Allen at a seminar. He had been at the big firm that I'd started at ages ago. I saw him in there. He looked so happy and relaxed, and he was wearing jeans. And I said to Allen, `What are you doing?' He goes, `I'm starting my own firm.' I said, `OK, great. Good for you.' And six months later I called him up and I said, `Hey, how's it going? 'Cause I think I'd like to come join you.'
HATTIE: When you started off on your own, where did the business come from? Did you bring it with you? Did you go out and beat the, you know, doors down for business, or what?
LINDA: I did take some clients with me, because I'd been working in litigation, primarily. Some of those litigation clients had wanted me to be their transactional lawyer as well, but I couldn't there. I couldn't at that firm, because an entertainment litigation firm primarily gets their business from the entertainment transactional lawyers.
So as I started to get more and more requests for that, it became more and more appealing. Ultimately, one of the clients that I'd been doing litigation for was going on a world tour and he said, `I really need a personal lawyer. I need somebody just to be with me all the time and take care of a lot of different things. Why don't you be that person?' And I couldn't resist the idea of traveling around the world with a rock band.
HATTIE: Hey! Did they give you something to play in the background?
LINDA: Oh, it was fantastic! Jonny Anderson, who's the lead singer of the group Yes, did a big concert at the Greek Theatre here in Los Angeles. It's a 6,000-seat venue. And he let me come on stage and sing backup for him. It was so much fun.
HATTIE: How, then, does one build off of that? You come back from the world tour, you go, `OK. Well, now what do I do next?'