His Cause: Bringing Down the Mouse
Bertram Fields has represented some of the biggest names in entertainment, from the Beatles to John Travolta and Tom Cruise. The press-savvy attorney is fond of bragging that his clients have included every major Hollywood studio -- except one.
“I would not represent Disney,” he said flatly. “I don’t want to be in a situation where I can’t sue them.”
No other attorney has made such a lucrative business out of taking on the world’s most famous entertainment company, which has a reputation in legal circles for its hardball approach to litigation.
“They’re powerful, they’re tough, they’re unyielding,” said Fields, an $850-an-hour partner at Greenberg, Glusker, Fields, Claman, Machtinger & Kinsella. “And that’s part of the fun.”
Fields represented Jeffrey Katzenberg when the former Walt Disney Co. studios chief extracted a settlement of more than $250-million from the company after a bitter falling-out with Chairman Michael Eisner. Fields was the lawyer Miramax Co-Chairmen Bob and Harvey Weinstein turned to last summer in a business dispute with corporate parent Disney. And it was Fields who transformed an obscure lawsuit over Winnie the Pooh royalties into a high-profile case with hundreds of millions of dollars at stake.
The Pooh case spawned fierce accusations of wrongdoing on both sides and most recently cast a spotlight on Fields. Mattel Inc. recently entered into the fray, asking a Los Angeles judge to remove Fields’ law firm -- and, by extension, Fields -- from the case for allegedly breaching legal ethics. The toy maker, which hired Fields’ firm in a separate matter, contends the firm has betrayed Mattel’s interests in favor of its clients in the Pooh case.
Fields, who celebrated his 74th birthday last month with a mock training session with boxer Oscar De La Hoya, a client, brushes off the allegations and predicts they will be dismissed. Although Disney didn’t file the motion to remove him from the case, Fields insists the company is behind it, an assertion Disney denies.
Daniel Petrocelli, who is representing Disney in the Pooh case, says Fields makes such statements as a ploy.
“Mr. Fields uses the media to promote that perception so he can attract new business,” Petrocelli said. Fields and his fellow attorneys, Petrocelli added, have made “a concerted effort to try to damage Disney in the press.”
Fields is fond of saying he has never lost a trial. When pressed, he qualifies that, saying he has never lost a trial in which he was a lead attorney. In fact, most of his cases are settled long before trial.
“He has now achieved a place where he can more often than not settle disputes and disagreements without ever having to step into the courtroom,” said Katzenberg, now a co-principal of Disney rival DreamWorks SKG.
Show-Biz Consigliere
Fields, who did stand-up comedy as an undergraduate at UCLA, was always drawn to the stage. After graduating from Harvard Law School, the Los Angeles native began taking cases for aspiring young actors, writers and directors. Early clients included actors Edward G. Robinson and Jack Webb of “Dragnet” fame.
Among Fields’ successes: winning a $12-million judgment and injunction against the creators of the “Beatlemania” stage show; blocking Paramount Pictures from altering Warren Beatty’s movie “Reds” for television; and helping “Godfather” author Mario Puzo get a screenwriting credit for “Earthquake.”
Puzo was so grateful he dedicated one of his books, “The Family,” to Fields, calling him “the greatest consigliere of them all.”
Fields’ pursuits outside the courtroom have included writing a series of novels, under the pen name D. Kincaid, about the sexual and legal exploits of a swaggering Los Angeles attorney. After his father suggested he do more serious work, he wrote a nonfiction account of the life and death of King Richard III. His latest endeavor: wading into the literary debate about whether William Shakespeare wrote all the plays attributed to him.
“I like drama,” Fields said in an interview at his Century City law firm, where his plush office is appointed with Oriental carpets, a marble bust of Beethoven and a painting of George Washington. “I’m a frustrated actor.”
His courtroom demeanor, however, is more cool than theatrical, masking a tenacious and fearless style.
“All Bert cares about is his client,” said David Geffen, also a co-principal at DreamWorks. “There are attorneys who care about relationships with other people, not burning bridges. Bert is a bridge burner.”
Image Takes a Few Hits
His image was tarnished a bit when he represented pop star Michael Jackson against allegations that the singer had molested a young boy. Fields began feuding with Jackson’s family and eventually quit in 1993.
The case highlighted Fields’ relationship with Anthony Pel- licano, a private investigator who probed the backgrounds of Jackson’s accusers. Pellicano has been discredited in some quarters for allegedly operating outside the law and is facing charges that he illegally possessed grenades. He has pleaded not guilty and denies any wrongdoing.
The lawyer also took flak in 1997 when he wrote an open letter to German Chancellor Helmut Kohl comparing the treatment of Scientologists in Germany to that of the Jews in the 1930s. Fields, whose clients include prominent Scientologists such as Cruise and Travolta, said writing the letter was his idea and that he paid about $60,000 to publish it in the International Herald Tribune. It was signed by a raft of his celebrity friends and clients, including actor Dustin Hoffman, writer Gore Vidal and Paramount studio Chairwoman Sherry Lansing.
Fields said he was offended by German laws against Scientologists, noting: “I just thought it was wrong.”
He traces his fallout with Disney to the late 1980s and a heated negotiation on behalf of a client. He said he can’t remember details of the dispute but recalled that Eisner bristled at his insistence on taping the sessions so “nobody forgot what was said.”
After that, Fields said, he was “barred from the lot.” He said Eisner and other Disney executives briefly tried to blacklist him by telling some of his clients they couldn’t deal with Disney as long as Fields was their lawyer.
Eisner declined to comment for this story.
Relations thawed enough that Eisner attended a party 12 years ago to celebrate Fields’ engagement to art consultant Barbara Guggenheim, now his wife. Among the guests at Chasen’s restaurant in West Hollywood were Geffen, who recalled asking Eisner: “What are you doing here? You hate Bert Fields.”
Geffen said Eisner replied: “I only hate him in business; I don’t hate him personally.”
That was before the Katzenberg case. “Now, he may hate me personally,” Fields said.
When Katzenberg decided to sue Disney, contending he was owed as much as $581 million in bonuses, it was Fields he turned to. Fields eagerly embraced the case as the challenge of a career. Under intense questioning by Fields, Eisner acknowledged making disparaging comments about Katzenberg, including an infamous line: “I hate the little midget.”
“Bert was very effective,” said a former Disney attorney. “He knew how to press Michael’s buttons.”
Disney settled in 1999, reportedly paying Katzenberg more than $250 million.
Pressing the Pooh Case
The latest dispute, over Winnie the Pooh, began 12 years ago when Shirley Slesinger Lasswell and her daughter Patricia Slesinger sued Disney, claiming the company had cheated them out of hundreds of millions of dollars in royalties from Pooh videocassettes, DVDs and computer software. Disney says it doesn’t owe royalties on such products because they weren’t mentioned in a 1983 agreement with the Slesingers.
The suit quietly dragged on until three years ago, when the family hired Fields. In the last year, publications around the world, from Forbes to the Times of London and the South China Morning Post, have covered a fight that has grown uglier by the minute amid allegations from both sides of purloined papers and shredded documents.
The latest skirmish involves Mattel, which makes Disney toys.
The company has chafed at the demands by Fields’ law firm for records concerning the Pooh royalties. Mattel believes the firm has a conflict of interest because it is seeking some of the same documents that the firm had succeeded in sealing as part of a confidential settlement in another case. In that matter, Mattel hired the firm to defend it against allegations of accounting improprieties lodged by a former employee. Fields himself was involved in the initial stages, according to Mattel’s motion; Fields, however, denies any involvement in the case.
The law firm “has chosen to jettison one client, Mattel, in favor of another -- undoubtedly more lucrative -- client,” Mattel wrote the judge.
The legal maneuver is unusual because Mattel is not a direct party to the Winnie the Pooh lawsuit, said Laurie Levenson, a Loyola University law professor.
“If Disney and Mattel are allies,” she said, “then this is a very convenient way for Disney to take a shot.” Still, she added, that doesn’t absolve Fields’ firm of a potential conflict.
“Any lawyer who has had basic ethics in law school would say, ‘Hey gang, we have a problem here,’ ” Levenson said. “You can’t be zealous against your own client.”
Fields counters that he and his firm have avoided a conflict by hiring another firm to handle the request for Mattel records. And, he says, he has no intention of stepping aside, especially because Disney is involved.
“At this stage in my career,” he said, referring to a famed Spanish bullfighter, “it’s sort of like Manolete getting closer and closer to the horns of the bull.”
