Wk 13 — Art Activity — Portfolio Research
Disclosure: For the sake of this assignment, I’d like to discuss the upcoming people and companies as a pre-law major. While I know this doesn’t currently exist at CSULB and the closest is criminal justice, this is a major that does exist and would be the closest to helping me achieve my goal of becoming a lawyer/paralegal.
Companies
McArthur Law Firm
McArthur Law Firm provides unparalleled legal service to multiple media corporations and companies around the world. From StudioMDHR, creators of the hit 2017 Cuphead, to indie scene ground breaking Yacht Club Games with Shovel Knight, McArthur Law Firm works with intellectual property law, copyright law, trademark law, and their specialty in relatively new video game law. From infringement cases to licensing agreements, M.L.F. is an industry trusted firm with clients and work to prove it.
I believe that as an aspiring lawyer and a passionate tech and game enthusiast, I have a unique set of interests and skills that would allow me to engage in this newly emerging field better than other applicants. While many lawyers and paralegals exist, and that many video game players exist, few are both. Especially concerning their already established clients, I have personally experienced their products as an end user. This would not only help me be better at my job at McArthur as I would have a clearer sense of what intentions and end goals need to be met, but allow me be a better associate between other parties and companies, whether that be in house or with another client.
Gamma Law
Gamma Law is a new type of international law firm, specializing within the bleeding edge of new media and tech sectors. Anything dealing with technology or emerging medias, Gamma Law has the team around the globe to help with whatever legal issues that may arrise in a new product. Some examples include their industry ground breaking teams dealing with virtual reality, augmented reality, and mixed reality systems. They also have team dedicated to backing up esports teams, a new emerging form of media-sports entertainment. Whatever you have, if it’s in the tech industry, Gamma Law can help you.
As a law firm dealing with the cutting edge technology products and services industry, they work with technology on the enterprise, industry, commercial, and consumer levels throughout the whole process. As someone who quite literally has the most advanced and latest consumer grade virtual reality headset in their home, I am most interested in this firm specifically as they not only work with one facet of law, but all of throughout it’s journey from whiteboard marker idea to finished product, to industry level adoption. I have my eyes on several parts of the emerging tech industry and I have for years now. I have seen the Silicon Valley cycle of products, the new groundbreaking release of medical products, the list goes on. I have experience watching the industry that would let me have the leg up on others hoping to do the same.
Priori Legal
Priori is a new type of legal counsel for the new digital age. While usual legal counsel would require you to write a request for proposal and meeting with a legal team at a firm, who may or may not be able to help, which would charge a flat rate, plus hourly, plus some probable other fees, Priori acts a digital portal to getting the right type of legal counsel online. Everything done digitally means saved time, money, and other assets and materials. Utilizing a global network of legal experts, Priori can get you the right person or people, depending on the scale of the job, what jurisdiction, and so on.
Priori is a new form legal help, using the power of the internet and computers to revolutionize and modernize the old ways of getting legal counsel. As such, they’ll need someone who can stay up to date and up to speed with computers. Up until recently, the legal scene still had some old timers with big names that couldn’t be bothered with modern legal practices. What better hire (or maybe an intern for now) than someone young, who is usually the type of person you’d go to for some IT help that has an actual interest in law?
People
Ryan Morrison — https://morrisonrothman.com/ryan
Ryan Morrison, digitally known as the “Video Game Lawyer”, is a founding partner of the law firm Morrison Rothman. Unlike the lawyers of the past, Ryan Morrison and many others in the emerging technology and media have gone away with the strict business attitude to being broad and open about the occupation, while remaining professional about his work. His work on video game law and esports teams have brought about a new precedent for what the new information age lawyer should be.
Steven Blickensderfer — https://www.carltonfields.com/team/b/steven-blickensderfer
Steven Blickensderfer is a modern day, future thinking practitioner of law, and co-chairs his law firms Esports and Electronic Gaming Practices. Him as well as other lawyers have produced the podcast “LAN Party Lawyers” which takes aim at current video game news and legal issues and talks them through with his legal co-hosts. I have actually gotten the chance to speak to him in person at a convention I went to last year where they recorded a session. Talking to them about future aspirations of becoming a lawyer within the rapidly emerging legal scenes dealing with technology really opened my eyes and was definitley one of those movie montage moments. Presenting as knowledgable and professional, Blickensderfer shows himself as one of the industry’s most capable and immersed lawyers out there.
Richard Hoeg — https://hoeglaw.com/about/richard-hoeg/
What got me interested in a smaller firm such as this one was founding lawyer Richard Hoeg. He not only has advocated and personally helped pass legislation for the new age of the internet dealing with things like crowdfunding and software, but runs a YouTube channel that runs a series known as “Virtual Legality” which takes happenings from within the virtual space and takes a look at them from a practical legal standpoint, while also making it easy to understand what’s happenimg, what legally can be done, and so on. Channels like this such as “Legal Eagle” have not only pushed me further into pursuing law as a career, but specifically making it about what’s happening in the metaverse such as video games, CnD’s, website policy changes, etc. is exactly what I personally strive to help shape in the future as a lawyer — Taking your experience and interest of the modern digital age, and using the occupation and knowledge to help better it for the future.
