Wardrobe/Photoshoot Tweets

[Miguel]

Apparently she was Haley's makeup artist on the shoot. The earlier Tweets she made were to Haley's lawyer. I'm thinking Dina might have recommended Nora as her resume isn't filled with high-profile clients: http://www.puresemblance.com/resume.htm

[John Brown]

Apparently, it appears as if Dina Lapolt has taken Haley under her wing, as she seems to be acting as Haley's older, wiser and protective big sister. It's good to have an experienced attorney as your close friend. Haley is smart and lucky to have a good friend like Dina Lapolt.

[midnightblues]

It's always good to have a Lawyer as a friend. I hope Dina cares for Haley in that manner

[alpha7388]

I am glad to see her with good representation, but all these people are taking their cut.

[My Alter Ego]

I am glad to see her with good representation, but all these people are taking their cut.

True -- particularly the lawyer. However, I am glad that Steven Tyler directed Haley to his attorney. There's a certain amount of security in that. And, obviously, the woman has many connections that Haley currently doesn't have.

[Miguel]

I am glad to see her with go od representation, but all these people are taking their cut.

True. But I think Dina likes Haley and/or sees a lot of potential in her. She represents James and Lauren as well but they have received less personal attention. Some of that may be because they haven't been around much.

Which gets to another issue. She may see Haley as more of an artist. In this video, she advises bands to learn about the business but always put the creative first: http://www.artistshousemusic.org/videos/...+as+a+band

You have to live here once you’re successful, but do not move here until you’re successful.

[alpha7388]

I was thinking of one video of Dina Lapolt where she cautions artists about multiple music producers getting very expensive very fast.

[Miguel]

I was thinking of one video of Dina Lapolt where she cautions artists about multiple music producers getting very expensive very fast.

I could see having to share royalties on one hit song with multiple producers being costly but having different producers work on different songs doesn't seem like it would be that much more expensive.


Dina's background and more (in her own words):

In San Francisco, I lived with my aunt and uncle and I started teaching guitar lessons to kids just to pay the bills. I also joined some bands and played around in the San Francisco club scene and then I met some people and started promoting clubs in San Francisco like I did in New York. It was pretty much up and down. Some nights I would do very well and other nights I wouldn't do so well and then I found a fourteen year old, three-person punk band. These kids were like in the eighth and ninth grade and I just fell in love with them so I started managing these kids and then I signed them to a record deal and managed them and that was a thankless job.

All the while, I am approaching my thirties, I have a college degree in music, I'm still in the music industry but I'm not eighteen or twenty anymore so one of the bands that I was in was invited to showcase at this music conference in San Francisco and that was very exciting and part of being able to showcase was that one member of the band would get to go to the conferences throughout the day. I looked in the schedule and saw these different panels in the music like publishing deals and record deals and I was very intrigued by that because I was always very business minded, but I didn't really know anything about the music business as opposed to the music industry.

I took my trusty demo tape - and I'm dating myself - and I went to this panel called 'NEGOTIATING RECORD DEALS' and on the panel were three lawyers talking about the ins and outs of a record deal and all that other stuff. So I get to the panel and I thought I was at the wrong one because there were three guys and one of them was very heavily tattooed and the other one had two earrings and long hair and I was like 'I can't be in the lawyers panel!' so I asked someone next to me and they said that it was and I had an epiphany right there and then. I said 'I'm gonna be a music lawyer!' and that was what happened.

I was able to meet a lot of people in the music business and get interviews but the same thing I heard over and over gain was 'You don't know what you're doing!'. It was very shocking to me because I thought that it was going to be a done deal but it was absolutely not a done deal because the same thing that I kept hearing over and over again twelve years go is the same thing that I tell new lawyers today. 'I can't hire you until I know I can give you fifteen producer agreements and you can go and negotiate them, draft them, bring them back fully executed and have them completely favorable to my client without asking a single question or bugging the shit out of me. Until you can do that, there is no room for you at the firm.'

The great thing about L.A. is that it's an entertainment town, and both USC and UCLA offer Continuing Education Programs at night where they give classes and lectures in the music and film business . So I charged a class on my credit card called 'EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE MUSIC BUSINESS' and the professor at the time was DON PASSMAN. I bought his book when I was sixteen years old called 'EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE MUSIC BUSINESS' and it was mu Bible. I had charged the five hundred dollars to charge the class on my credit card. So I took his class and I interned for a music lawyer in Century City, who at the time represented JEFF FOXWORTHY and JENNIFER LOPEZ. In the beginning, I didn't know what I was doing so I would do whatever it took to learn.

He would say fax this paper to so and so and I didn't just go fax the paper. I would read what I was faxing and then write down questions that I would have and I would go back to resources that I had such as the DON PASSMAN book or these entertainment industry contract guides that are put out by MATTHEW BENDER that the law library had and I would go back to those and look up my questions and then I would get answers. For the stuff where I couldn't get any answers, I would ask my boss but I would save up my questions for when my boss was in a good mood and his phone wasn't ringing off the wall. When he was a bit willing to chat, I would pick his brain with questions and then I started meeting other lawyers because I started going to things in L.A. like the CALIFORNIA COPYRIGHT CONFERENCE...

Experts would come and talk about these things that they were doing, so I would go to that religiously. I also joined the ASSOCIATION OF INDEPENDENT MUSIC PUBLISHERS which met on the third Thursday of every month during the day and I would go to those luncheons and meet people there. Once I started meeting other lawyers, I would have questions about deals that I was doing and I would take them to lunch. I would spend a lot of money taking people to lunch and I would ask them questions (w/o) violating confidences and pick their brain and they would give me some of their agreements and they would redact the agreement so I'd take out the information so I could read what they were doing and that was what I did. All the while I had to wait tables because I couldn't support myself. When you want something, you just go get it. Whatever it takes.

I ended up learning a lot from the nine months that I interned for that one lawyer. After nine months I started to become valuable to him. I was able to do producer agreements without asking him questions. I was able to create value for him where he was able to bill me out, so I ended up working at his firm for like three years. I became a bona fide lawyer at the firm and then he and I had a falling out. We're great friends now but the falling out had to do with business issues. He is a fantastic lawyer, but he's a lawyer. I see myself as a business person and a deal maker and he really didn't have good instincts when it came to money or with what clients wanted to do. He was really in the tree, where I was in the forest. So we kind of had a difference of opinion on a couple of things that had happened with a certain client and that client started to rely on my instincts more and more and more and it became a very uncomfortable situation for him.

At that point, he had been practicing for twenty five years and I had only been practicing for three years but this particular client just ended up relying on me more than him and instead of nurturing that relationship and encouraging me to grow, he put the reigns on my a little more because he was insecure and that really hurt the situation. When I see a client really take to lawyer in my firm, I encourage them because I've learned from the mistakes of my old boss. I encourage them to take the client to lunch and send them birthday presents and Christmas presents. I encourage them to really get them to know the client on a personal level to solidify the bond even more. Do I run the risk of the lawyers here leaving and taking clients and opening their own firm? Of course, but the only thing to fear is fear itself and I can't live like that. If a lawyer is going to leave me and go open up their own practice and take some of the clients that I originally brought into the firm, than that is the way it should be. I encourage my lawyers to build their practice within my practice. My own boss at the time didn't see it that way.

^^ She encourages the lawyers who work for her to bond with the clients on a personal level. The fact she appears to be handling Haley personally must be a good thing.

A good song is a good song is a good song but when it gets out there and people start playing it , then things start to happen. So any band or artist that just thinks that a music lawyer and a manager is the 'end-all, be-all' to creating their careers, they are sadly mistaken. You have to create yourself to get the attention of us and then we can take it to a new level.

At the end of the day, if you can't pay your rent and your mortgage with your music, then do it as a hobby. It's like opening up a 7-11 on the corner, it's business. You've got to put up money to make money. If you don't want to put up money to make money and you don't want to think of yourself as a brand, and not learn the principles of the music business and apply them to your craft and actually start making a living, then don't be in it! Trust me, there are a hundred people at my door that are lined up that are willing to do that. The music is just a part of it. There is touring. There is merchandising. There are sponsorships and endorsements. It's all a part of the music business.

The music is the calling card. The music has to be good but that is inherent. If the music is not good then forget everything else. Music is only the eighth of it. We have a whole other spectrum of things that need to be established and need to be developed before that particular artist can start to make money with their music and that needs to be tapped. You have some artists that are anomalies like BEYONCE. She's amazing! This woman is a film star, a music star, and she's a brand. Good for her! You have other artists that say, 'I'm not gonna do that'. Well, great! Then just do it as a hobby. Don't call me. It's a business and my job is to make money in the entertainment industry for my client. If I'm not doing that, then I'm not doing my job.

The one thing that I'm very careful about and something that I think a lot of my colleagues need to take a lesson from is that I try not to overstep my boundaries. That is a really big issue in our industry. For instance, in film, the agents are the brokers. They are the deal makers of the film and TV industry. On the other hand, in music, the deal makers are the music lawyers. It's very much a reverse role and the agents in the music business plan tours and everything else in the live music sector. They are not involved with the record companies and the publishing companies unless they are partners with those people. You get really close to your clients and they talk to you and they trust you and then they start asking your opinion on creative things.

You have to be careful. I'm very aware that I'm a lawyer. Even though I have a background and a degree in music, I was never successful in music for whatever reason. I have to be careful. So when a client tells me that the record company thinks that this should be the single and asks me what I think, I've always got to tell them, 'I'm your attorney. I'm your forty two year-old attorney. You don't want my opinion as to what the single should be.' That's not my job. I don't want to give my opinion because it's irresponsible. You don't want a lawyer telling you what to do creatively. That's a manager's job.

More... http://www.rockwired.com/dinalapolt.html

[Thom0065]

I am glad to see her with good representation, but all these people are taking their cut.

Well the good (and honest??) lawyer would be making sure that the other people taking a cut are not ripping her off ... Several years back I heard an interview on Howard Stern with Buster Douglas ... He was "paid" one million dollars in his first Mike Tyson fight ... Buster told Howard his actual paycheck for the fight was $12,000, after he paid his trainer, promoter, manager, managers brother for something or other, and various other leaches anf hanger-oners ... sad part was Buster could not figure out why Howard was appalled by this ... he thought he did well ... There are people who are pro's at parting new and unsuspecting stars, with their money ...

[midnightblues]

When Haley was first signed to Interscope my first concern was for her to get a reputable entertainment attorney to be able to walk her through the legalities and complexities of a recording contract. One thing that is extremely important and that is that her attorney is able to negotiate a sizable royalty , because everything comes out of the royalties usually new artist are in the 10% range. I just hope she was able to negotiate something between 12 and 15%. One good thing to and that Haley has her parents to give their opinions and advice. I'm quite sure that their radar antennas are in full position to monitor anything suspicious. After being in the business for 30 years, Harry and Patty no some reputable people who can also give advice and can detect when suspicious activity is present. One more responsibility of an entertainment lawyer is to make sure that their clients get a sizable upfront fee, able to cover costs living expenses ect ect. Because of this might be the only money that Haley sees for quite some time. So Dina seems like she is very legitimate and geared to the success of her clients (Haley).

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There is also a website called( how things work.com) that explain in detail how a recording contract works.