• Entertainment Law
  • Intellectual Property
  • Production Counsel
  • Rights & Clearances
  • Domestic & International Film Licensing
  • Employment Agreements
  • Film Finance
  • Talent Representation

Attorney Profile

Dan Stutz has been practicing entertainment law for over fifteen years, both in-house and in private practice.  His broad expertise encompasses a wide variety of transactional entertainment services, including the full range of business and legal affairs, such as rights acquisition, development, production, financing and distribution.  In addition to representing well known independent film financing and production companies, Dan has specialized in the negotiation and preparation of agreements for the services of screenwriters, directors, performers, actors, producers, key crew members and leading executives in the entertainment industry.

Prior to launching Stutz Law Corp. in 2013, Dan served as Executive Vice President, Business & Legal Affairs for Exclusive Media, a vertically integrated global filmed entertainment company.  In this capacity, Dan supervised all business and legal affairs matters for the company and all of its divisions.  While at Exclusive Media, Dan negotiated all key talent deals on the motion pictures End of Watch (Jake Gyllenhaal), Snitch (Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Susan Sarandon), Parkland (Zac Efron, Paul Giamatti, Billy Bob Thornton), and Can a Song Save Your Life? (Keira Knightley, Mark Ruffalo, Adam Levine, Cee-Lo Green), among others.

From 2007 to 2011, Dan was employed as head of Business & Legal Affairs for The Film Department, an independent film finance and production company based in Beverly Hills, California.  While at “TFD,” Dan handled all business and legal affairs matters on the motion picture Law Abiding Citizen starring Jamie Foxx and Gerard Butler, which grossed over $125,000,000 in worldwide box office.

In 2003, Dan was hired as Vice President of Business and Legal Affairs at Yari Film Group where over the next four years his efforts would prove instrumental on over twenty star-driven films including The Illusionist (Edward Norton, Jessica Biel), Prime (Meryl Streep, Uma Thurman), the documentary film Dave Chappelle’s Block Party, and Academy Award® Best Picture Winner Crash (Sandra Bullock, Brendan Fraser).

From 1998 to 2003, Dan was in private practice as an associate at the Beverly Hills, CA entertainment boutique of Weissmann, Wolff, et al. where he conducted a diverse legal practice representing writers, directors, producers, studios, production companies and film financiers.

Immediately after law school in 1997, he served as Judicial Clerk for the Honorable Dickran Tevrizian, Jr., of the United States District Court, Central District of California.

Dan is currently a member of the UCLA Entertainment Symposium Committee and is a frequent panelist at the annual financing & distribution market Film-Com™ held each year in Nashville, Tennessee.

EDUCATION

  • J.D., University of Michigan Law School, Ann Arbor, MI, 1997
  • B.A., History, University of California at Los Angeles, 1993

ADMITTED TO PRACTICE

  • California since 1997