The Fowler School of Law Entertainment Law Clinic provides students with a unique opportunity to work directly with low budget independent filmmakers and to serve as production legal counsel for a feature length motion picture. Filmmakers who have used the services offered by the Entertainment Law Clinic have won numerous awards and honors, including the Newport Beach Film Festival Audience Award for Best U.S. Film, the Netflix Find Your Voice Film Competition, and have premiered at the Los Angeles Film Festival. The names of our clinic students appear in the on-screen credits for each film.
Under the supervision of the faculty, participating students set up corporations or LLCs, file for copyrights, and draft all production-related contracts and documents including crew, actors, and locations agreements for real clients.
In conjunction with entertainment industry organizations such as the Directors Guild of America, Chapman law Professor Kathy Heller, identifies eligible film(s) that are ready to begin production. The producer and/or director of the selected film then works directly with clinical students who will draft all production-related contracts and documents.
“Through the networks I developed and the skills I acquired from Professor Kathy Heller’s Entertainment Law Clinic, I was able to step right into film and commercial producing while continuing to have the day-to-day interaction in business and legal affairs that I was trained for.”
"The experience was worthwhile because it provided me with actual practice, and not just theory. I learned how to interact with clients and that, in turn, actually helped to expand my knowledge of both law and business."
