Entertainment law firm The Fruitful Firm can help you learn options, maximize your odds of success, and protect your interests.
entertainment law
Being a successful entertainer or creator isn't easy.
Career & Industry Uncertainty or Confusion
Harmful or Bad Entertainment Contracts
Loss of Control Over Your Career or Creative Choices
Risks & Threats of Monetary Losses
Too Few & Missed Opportunities
Whether you're an entertainer or a creator of music, film, television, or live entertainment, without the help of a top entertainment law firm you risk dealing with
As an entertainment law firm we understand your goals, challenges, and fears and are ready to help you.
Learn Your Options
You'll get expert advice so that you understand any issues or risks and your options for pursuing success and protecting yourself.
You'll control how we'll work together and the amount of risk you're willing to accept in pursuing your goals and maximizing your odds of success.
Own Your Success
With our firm's help and protection, you'll eliminate your stresses and be able to focus on the more important things.
Protect Your Interests
No matter what you do as an entertainer or creator, your level of industry success, or what your goals or issues are, with The Fruitful Firm as your entertainment law firm, our goal is that you
Zach Scott Gainous is an entertainment lawyer and the managing attorney and founder of entertainment law firm The Fruitful Firm.
Zach is considered by many to be among one of the best entertainment attorneys and has almost 20 years of diverse experience working in the entertainment and music industries on both the creative and business sides helping entertainers and creators in music, film, television, and other areas of live entertainment and media.
Zach founded entertainment law firm The Fruitful Firm to help clients like you who need advice and representation so that you can understand your options, have the best chances for success, and always feel protected.
Meet entertainment law firm founder Zach Scott Gainous
"Beyond thankful to have Zach to help guide me through my music publishing contract negotiations. Zach's such a thorough and knowledgeable expert, but also super easy to work with. He made confusing legal language easy to understand, while making important changes and giving more clarity to each critical detail. I wouldn't have the deal I have today without his help and I'll definitely hire him again!"
"Zach has guided me through my career since almost day one. He's been an invaluable member of my team and I doubt I'd be where I am today without his help. He's helped me with everything from film and television contracts to trademarks. He's always thorough and honest and I can tell it's because he cares about me and my interests. I'd honestly say that everyone should have Zach as their lawyer and I'm glad he's my entertainment attorney."
"As a filmmaker and musician, I'm so grateful to have hired Zach Gainous as my entertainment attorney. He has such a vast knowledge of the music, film, and television industries, copyrights, and contracts. He's honest and upfront, a fierce negotiator, and makes complex contracts and legal things simple to grasp. I'd never hesitate to recommend that anyone in entertainment should hire Zach."
Here's What Our Entertainment Law Clients Say About Our Firm & Founder
How We Help Entertainment Clients
The Fruitful Firm is considered by many of our clients to be one of the top entertainment law firms. We can help you with your career, business, creative works, intellectual property, and select personal matters. Whether you need help with copyrights or contracts, and almost everything in between, we help entertainers, celebrities, and creators of music, movies, TV shows and programs, digital media and content, live entertainment, books and literary works, scripts and screenplays, and more.
No matter what you do or might need help with, we can likely help you. Our firm is one of the "go-to" entertainment law firms for many entertainment industry clients including
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Music artists, songwriters, musicians, and record producers
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Actors and actresses (Film, TV, Theatrical and Stage, Voice and Voice-Over)
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Stand-up comedians and comics
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Pro wrestlers and other athletes and sports entertainers
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Writers and authors of books, scripts, and screenplays
- Filmmakers, motion picture and television directors, movie and TV show producers
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Animators and cartoonists
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Comic book artists and graphic novelists
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Reality TV stars
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Digital media and content creators, social media influencers, and internet personalities
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Media, television, and event hosts and personalities
Our entertainment law firm regularly advises and represents clients like you in various matters and issues, including drafting, negotiations, disputes, and litigation involving
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entertainment industry and creative contracts and agreements including music, film and television agreements,
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producer and production contracts, authorship, co-writer or co-authorship agreements, work-for-hire, employment,
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record deals, music and book publishing contracts,
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music, film, and television distribution, licensing, and development deals
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tours, performances, appearances, and sponsorship agreements,
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creative project and career funding and investment deals,
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name, image, and likeness and endorsement contracts,
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team member deals, including management and agent agreements,
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intellectual property, copyrights, trademarks, and trade secrets
As an entertainment law firm we also help entertainers and creators with select personal matters, especially when they might impact or intersect with their career or business interests, creative works, and intellectual property. This includes helping entertainers and creators with real estate and property matters, estate planning, wills, trusts, or probate issues, and family law or divorce including uncontested divorces and prenups.
While we're based out of our offices in Nashville, as an entertainment law firm we routinely help creators and entertainers residing throughout Tennessee, including clients who live in Nashville and the surrounding area, as well as Memphis, Knoxville, Murfreesboro, and Chattanooga.
Wondering how to become a firm client? Follow these 3 easy steps.
1. Tell Us What You're Looking For
Contact us, tell us what you need, and schedule your free consultation.
2. Attend Your Free Consultation
Attend your free consultation with us and discuss your goals, concerns, and issues.
3. Sign Your Fee Agreement
Sign your fee agreement to learn your options, own your success, and feel protected.
Still have more questions about hiring our entertainment law firm?
As a boutique entertainment law firm, our firm's fees are based on the value we bring and the time we spend working for you.
You'll pay us either a minimum flat fee or an hourly fee, or a small percentage of the money you earn as a result of the work we do for you on your entertainment related issues. We try to charge flat fees for as many things as possible to be transparent about pricing and provide a greater value to you. When we can't do flat fees, we charge an hourly fee of $265.00 per hour for new clients. Flat fees and hourly rates for entertainment legal services start at a minimum of one billable hour per month. If you're likely to require long-term or extensive hours of work, you may be required to pay and replenish a monthly refundable retainer to cover your future potential billable fees and costs.
In addition, we will charge you for any time spent traveling if we need to travel to serve you. Other costs or expenses to consider could include any travel and hotel costs, court costs, filing fees, and any other outside expenses charged by others to our firm on your behalf. We will get prior approval from you for these costs when possible and try to inform you of them as early as possible.
Specific prices and costs will be provided after your initial consultation with us.
How much does it cost to hire you as an entertainment law firm?
Our firm understands the financial struggles of creators and entertainers who are just starting out or having difficulties in the entertainment industries. We attempt to keep our prices and law firm's fees as affordable as possible while still being compensated fairly.
If you can't afford our minimum flat or hourly fees, we offer payment plans when possible. In addition, when possible our entertainment clients often have their legal fees paid for or reimbursed by the label, publisher, etc., that the client is in negotiations with as an additional part of the client's deal's signing advance.
Finally, we will sometimes take clients on a contingency fee basis, taking instead a small percentage of your earnings from any of your career or business deals or activities we help you with until you can afford to pay any larger hourly or flat fee amounts you might owe to our firm.
Payment plans and modifications for entertainment clients are assessed on a case-by-case basis and we would be happy to discuss options with you if needed.
What if I can't afford to pay for an entertainment law firm?
You might think that you can save money by doing some things yourself instead of hiring us as your entertainment law firm. Hiring our firm gives you the knowledge and confidence that you're getting the best expert advice and representation you can from an experienced entertainment law firm, as well as our firm's resources and connections. In addition, we carry insurance for your protection.
If you were to try to handle things yourself, you risk not recognizing costly issues or missing out on opportunities to maximize your entertainment related earnings potential. In addition, you risk paying much more later on to hire us to attempt to correct any errors. It is significantly more affordable to hire us early on than to do it yourself and risk needing to hire our firm later.
Is this something I can do myself instead of hiring an entertainment law firm?
You might think that you need to hire another larger entertainment law firm to have the best chances for success and protection. After all, bigger is surely better right?
The reality is that large entertainment law firms will not likely provide you with the best value and are rarely necessary. Not only are larger firms likely to be more expensive and rigid in how much they charge you, but you'll probably notice that they'll be less efficient. Large firms tend to have multiple entertainment attorneys unnecessarily doing the same work and aren't as quick to adopt the latest, most efficient technologies, increasing your costs. In addition, in our experience listening to former clients of larger firms, you'll likely be unable to get in touch with your music or entertainment lawyer as often and quickly as you want and will ultimately feel like you are just another name or number on their client list.
We are selective about who we work with and the number of entertainment industry clients accept. While our firm might be smaller, we do this so that we can give you the personal attention you need, be available when needed, provide custom solutions and prices so that you can afford our services, and provide maximum value to you. In the rare event that you need the resources of a larger firm, we have relationships with many other firms that we can partner with to supplement our entertainment legal services.
Why should I hire your firm instead of a larger entertainment law firm?
While some entertainment law firms might, we don't pitch, shop, or plug unsolicited songs or music, pilots, scripts, books, screenplays, or any other creative works to his current or former clients, or to any outside publishers, labels, studios, producers, artists, entertainers, etc. Our firm helps music and entertainment clients who already have interest or past success in their industries. If you have interest, offers, or past success, we'll be glad to help you.
Can I send you my music, script, or other creative project to have you shop, pitch, or plug me or my work to publishers, labels, studios, etc.?
As long as you live in Tennessee, we can be your entertainment law firm. we regularly help clients who live all across Tennessee and not just in Nashville where our offices are located.
If you live outside of Tennessee but have an entertainment related matter involving doing business in Tennessee or a person or property in Tennessee, we still may be able to help you with that issue. If that's not the case, we may not be able to help you, but you should still reach out and we will review your particular situation and let you know if we can help you or not.
What if I'm not in Nashville? Can I still hire you to be my entertainment law firm?
While this is not a typical arrangement, it is possible. To do so however requires certain conditions to protect you and the firm, including a written conflict of interest waiver.
We're very selective about who we accept as clients, especially when clients want to have dual representation by our firm. Often, because clients don't have an immediate need for both management and an entertainment law firm, our firm will start out as one or the other, most often starting out helping client's as an entertainment law firm. We will always discuss with you the possibility and any risks of us acting as both your entertainment law firm and your personal or talent management agency if you're interested.
Can I hire the firm to be both my entertainment law firm and talent management at the same time?
As an entertainment law firm we only help entertainers and creators with their careers, businesses and select personal matters, but we do not handle criminal legal matters for clients. We will gladly refer clients who need a criminal defense lawyer to another criminal attorney or firm when necessary. We will coordinate with our entertainment industry client's criminal defense lawyers and assist clients to the extent necessary if their potential criminal exposure also impacts their career or businesses.
Does your entertainment law firm handle criminal matters for your entertainment law clients?
The Fruitful Firm has it's name because "fruitful" is the perfect description of the kind of relationship the firm strives to have with its clients, and hopefully entertainment industry clients have with the firm: an abundantly productive, beneficial, or profitable relationship that produces good results.