In 2014, several partners left O’Melveny and Myers in 2014 to for a new entertainment group at Latham and Watkins. For more than a year, they worked in a temporary space, but have now settled into a permanent space.
The new home for the group is on the newly built out 11th and 12th floors of Constellation Place in Century City, giving them a better office space as they grow the entertainment practice from scratch.
In the new office, there is a large open common area which is surrounded by black-and- white murals of some famous Hollywood images and faces. After being in a temporary space for so long, having a permanent office helps to settle down. The space has been designed to foster community with the group, encouraging creativity and team-building similar to the way that a lot of startup and tech companies organize their offices.
One area that the practice has seen growth is with sports clients. The Latham & Watkins team has taken on work for clients such as the NCAA, doing transactional and media work for them. They are also working with Tencent, a company that partnered with the NBA to sign a large digital deal. In 2015, Latham and Watkins was the largest law firm in the world when measured by revenue, partly due to a very large client base and geography that the firm is able to cover.
Those large revenues figure to continue into 2016, as the firm is representing Legendary Entertainment, who purchased Dalian Wanda Group in January for $3.5 billion. The firm is able to balance being so large with still remaining a quality firm.
The focus on quality was evident even as the new entertainment practice was being built up. In short, they didn’t just want to have an entertainment practice in Los Angeles, they wanted to have the best one, and were willing to commit resources to make that happen. In the new Century City office, entertainment transactions and litigation make up about 85 percent of the business, with the rest of the work being for private equity clients as well as emerging companies.
Photo credit: Omar Barcena
