Business Transactions and Strategic Deal Counsel

Steven’s transactional work connects the language of an agreement with the business relationship it is intended to create. His experience includes developing, negotiating, and documenting arrangements involving content, technology, distribution, licensing, acquisitions, and corporate ventures.

For a business owner, investor, executive, or creative enterprise, the important questions often extend beyond price. What rights are being transferred? When is payment due? Which party controls approvals? What must be delivered, and what happens if performance falls short? Steven’s background helps clients evaluate these questions together.

Transactional representation may involve commercial terms, payment and revenue arrangements, intellectual property rights, territory and exclusivity, delivery obligations, renewal and termination, risk allocation, and dispute-resolution provisions. The goal is a workable agreement that supports the client’s commercial objectives and addresses foreseeable points of friction.

Paramount Pictures Leadership

As Paramount’s Executive Vice President of Business and Legal Affairs for its worldwide home entertainment, pay television, and digital media divisions, Steven supervised more than 30 attorneys and business executives.

His work involved major international distribution relationships, television ventures, and early digital licensing arrangements. That experience gives him a practical understanding of negotiations involving substantial commercial value, multiple stakeholders, changing technology, and long-term contractual obligations.

Representative Transactional Experience

Representative matters from Steven’s career, including his work at Paramount, include:

• Leading negotiations for the Movielink venture involving major motion-picture studios.
• Serving as lead legal and business-affairs executive on television licensing agreements with individual values exceeding $1 billion.
• Structuring early digital-media license agreements involving Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, and Netflix.
• Working on international pay-television ventures and distribution relationships.
• Advising Paramount’s home-entertainment and pay-television divisions in corporate restructuring and acquisition matters.

Civil Litigation and Commercial Disputes

A commercial dispute often turns on the same details that matter when a deal is first negotiated: ownership, payment, performance, approval rights, and the allocation of responsibility. Steven brings transactional knowledge to the analysis of disputed agreements and business relationships.

His background includes litigation practice in New York, a federal judicial clerkship, and expert-witness work in major entertainment and television disputes. At U2U Law, his experience supports the evaluation of contract issues, business objectives, evidence, negotiation options, and the practical implications of litigation.

Experience Across Business, Media and Technology

Before joining Paramount, Steven served as international counsel to the Motion Picture Association of America and the Motion Picture Export Association. His earlier television-production experience and graduate education in television, radio, and film also inform his understanding of the industries behind the agreements.

For clients, that combination can be especially useful where a transaction involves both legal rights and a working commercial operation—for example, the distribution of content, the licensing of technology, the development of a joint venture, or a continuing relationship among businesses.

Discuss Your Transaction or Civil Dispute

Explore our business law practice, commercial contract services, mergers and acquisitions counsel, California civil litigation, and New York commercial litigation.

Request a consultation with U2U Law or return to Our Team.