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About Us  | The Strote Law Group, founded in 1967 in Los Angeles, California, is a full-service law firm located in Westlake Villlage, California, providing the best legal services available to our clients in the business and music communities. Our firm's principal attorney, Joel Strote, a New York native, graduated with honors from the University of Michigan in 1960 and from Northwestern University Law School in 1963. Since his graduation, Mr. Strote served his country as a member of the United States Marine Corps, thereafter practicing law in New York City, Washington, D.C. and Hollywood, California until 1967 when the present firm was established as STROTE AND WHITEHOUSE. Since 1967, Mr. Strote has litigated complex copyright, contract and trademark disputes on behalf of our clients in all California state and Federal Courts. As general and litigation counsel to the world-famous entertainer Liberace from 1971 until his death in February, 1987, Strote handled all of Liberace's litigation (including the successful termination of the notorious "palimony" litigation in the early 1980's) as well as the drafting and consumation of all agreements affecting his client in the entertainment, business, real estate and financial fields. At Liberace's death, our firm's founder was named executor of his estate, trustee of his multi-million dollar estate and President of the Liberace Foundation for the Performing and Creative Arts. In this role, Mr. Strote presided over a Foundation that awarded millions of dollars to colleges and universities establishing Liberace Scholarships in the Performing and creative Arts. In addition to these duties, Strote was named President and Chief Executive Office of the Liberace Museum in 2002, a position he served in until his resignation in 2005. During his tenure at the Museum, Mr. Strote was active in expanding the Museum's new building, instituting bus shuttle services from the Las Vegas Strip to the Museum and in the creation and installation of the Liberace's Scholars exhibit. Honors have included Mr. Strote's inclusion in various Who's Who Directories as well as his receipt of sn AV rating in the Martindale-Hubbard lawyers directory. Pro Bono activities have included service as an Arts Commissioner of the City of Thousand Oaks, California (where he served between 2002 and 2004); service as a Judge Pro Tem, mediator and arbitrator for the Los Angeles Superior Court; and lecturing extensively both here and abroad on music and theatrical industry related issues. |
| The Strote Law Group has a long and distinguished history. Our music industry and other entertainment industry clients, to name a few, have included Liberace, Rick James, Chick Corea, Jermaine Jackson, Gene Clark, Santa Esmeralda, Jerry Lee Lewis, Glenn Ford, Ernest Borgnine and Ann Sothern, Marvin Gaye, Bellamy Brothers, Tina Marie, Britney Spears, Santa Esmeralda and Devante; and such well-known companies as Motown Records, Capitol Records, Warner Home Video, Mattel Toys, Sierra Records & Tapes, Voodoo Nation Records, AVI Records, Agency for the Performing Arts and Curb Records. We have won substantial settlements for many of our clients against large and powerful entities. For example, in representing Curb Records in a dispute with Capitol Records, we were able to extract a large settlement from Capitol; and in representing Liberace in many court battles over the years, we prevailed in each of the more than a dozen matters we acted as counsel on his behalf. Litigation, however, is not our only strong suit for we have negotiated several multimillion dollar agreement on behalf of our clients in entertainment-related fields. We are an international law firm representing clients both in the United States and abroad. We are regular participants at International forums and we attend the MIDEM music and video conference in Cannes, France on a yearly basis. At the MIDEM we meet with individuals and business entities from throughout the World thus giving us access to an ever-expanding global marketplace.
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| We pride ourselves on providing fair, honest and individualized service to each of our clients, be they large or small. All of our clients are big fish in our pond. We consider our clients "family" and we believe that is why our clients have continued to use our services throughout the forty years we have been practicing law in California. All of those whom we represent have been with us for many years and have become family as well as clients to us. We pride ourselves in taking a very personal interest in our clients well-being. Knowing that the legal world can be and often is a maze of incomprehensibility, we take a very pro-active approach to all legal matters we handle by first and most importantly listening to and taking very seriously our clients' desires and needs; then implementing a plan of action that is consistent with those needs; and finally providing regular substantive communication with these clients so they are well informed as we go forward in representing them. We believe there is no substitute for experience - a commodity we have had for almost one-half century. |
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