Allen J. Grubman is an American

entertainment lawyer Entertainment law, also referred to as media law, is legal services provided to the entertainment industry. These services in entertainment law overlap with intellectual property law. Intellectual property has many moving parts that include tradema ...

. Grubman was born and raised in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, and graduated from

City College of New York The City College of the City University of New York (also known as the City College of New York, or simply City College or CCNY) is a public university within the City University of New York (CUNY) system in New York City. Founded in 1847, Cit ...

and

Brooklyn Law School Brooklyn Law School (BLS) is a private law school in New York City. Founded in 1901, it has approximately 1,100 students. Brooklyn Law School's faculty includes 60 full-time faculty, 15 emeriti faculty, and a number of adjunct faculty. Brooklyn ...

. His clients include superstars and top record companies and their executives. In 1992 ''Business Week'' reported that he was considered "the most powerful lawyer in the music business," and in 2001 ''Newsweek'' called him "perhaps the music industry's wealthiest and most powerful attorney".

Biography

Grubman was born in and grew up in Crown Heights, in Brooklyn, New York. He attended

, where he earned a

BBA Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) is a bachelor's degree in business administration awarded by colleges and universities after completion of undergraduate study in the fundamentals of business administration and usually including advanced ...

While attending

, where he earned a J.D., he worked in the mailroom at the

William Morris Agency The William Morris Agency (WMA) was a Hollywood-based talent agency. It represented some of the best known 20th-century entertainers in film, television, and music. During its 109-year tenure it came to be regarded as the "first great talent ag ...

and as a

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...

page. After graduating from Brooklyn Law School in 1967, he wrote various lawyers asking for a job. When an attorney named Walter Hofer met with him, he recalled: "I didn't know what to say, so I tried to get him to like me. I said, 'I really want to work for you, but I don't come from a very wealthy family, so I can't afford to pay you very much to hire me.'" Hofer hired him to work in his music law firm as an associate for $125-per-week ($ in current dollar terms). Grubman subsequently started his own business. In the 1970s, he signed obscure

disco Disco is a genre of dance music and a subculture that emerged in the 1970s from the United States' urban nightlife scene. Its sound is typified by four-on-the-floor beats, syncopated basslines, string sections, brass and horns, electric p ...

artists who later became popular, and thereafter he signed a number of stars. Grubman started a firm with fellow Brooklyn Law School graduates Paul Schindler ('71) and Arthur Indursky ('67) in 1974, and upon Schindler's departure the firm was known as Grubman Indursky & Shire. In 1982 he landed one of his biggest clients,

Bruce Springsteen Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen (born September 23, 1949) is an American singer and songwriter. He has released 21 studio albums, most of which feature his backing band, the E Street Band. Originally from the Jersey Shore, he is an originato ...

. In 2005, the firm had grown to 30 attorneys. In 1992 ''Business Week'' reported that Grubman was considered "the most powerful lawyer in the music business." In 2001, ''Newsweek'' called him "perhaps the music industry's wealthiest and most powerful attorney". His clients have included Springsteen,

Madonna Madonna Louise Ciccone (; ; born August 16, 1958) is an American singer-songwriter and actress. Widely dubbed the " Queen of Pop", Madonna has been noted for her continual reinvention and versatility in music production, songwriting, a ...

, U2,

John Mellencamp John J. Mellencamp (born October 7, 1951), previously known as Johnny Cougar, John Cougar, and John Cougar Mellencamp, is an American singer-songwriter. He is known for his catchy brand of heartland rock, which emphasizes traditional instrumen ...

Rod Stewart Sir Roderick David Stewart (born 10 January 1945) is a British rock and pop singer and songwriter. Born and raised in London, he is of Scottish and English ancestry. With his distinctive raspy singing voice, Stewart is among the best-selling ...

, Sean "Puffy" Combs,

Luther Vandross Luther Ronzoni Vandross Jr. (April 20, 1951 – July 1, 2005) was an American singer, songwriter, and record producer. Known for his sweet and soulful vocals, Vandross has sold over 40 million records worldwide. He achieved eleven consecutive P ...

Elton John Sir Elton Hercules John (born Reginald Kenneth Dwight; 25 March 1947) is a British singer, pianist and composer. Commonly nicknamed the "Rocket Man" after his 1972 hit single of the same name, John has led a commercially successful career a ...

Jennifer Lopez Jennifer Lynn Affleck (' Lopez; born July 24, 1969), also known as J.Lo, is an American singer, actress and dancer. In 1991, she began appearing as a Fly Girl dancer on the sketch comedy television series '' In Living Color'', where she re ...

Mariah Carey Mariah Carey (; born March 27, 1969) is an American singer, songwriter, actress, and record producer. Referred to as the " Songbird Supreme", she is noted for her five-octave vocal range, melismatic singing style and signature use of the w ...

, and

Andrew Lloyd Webber Andrew Lloyd Webber, Baron Lloyd-Webber (born 22 March 1948), is an English composer and impresario of musical theatre. Several of his musicals have run for more than a decade both in the West End and on Broadway. He has composed 21 musical ...

. In May 2020, the hacker group

REvil REvil (Ransomware Evil; also known as Sodinokibi) was a Russia-based or Russian-speaking private ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) operation. After an attack, REvil would threaten to publish the information on their page ''Happy Blog'' unless the ra ...

claimed to have hacked and downloaded a huge amount data from Grubman's law firm, and demanded $42 million ransom to prevent release of data. In 2022, he was inducted into the

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (RRHOF), sometimes simply referred to as the Rock Hall, is a museum and hall of fame located in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, United States, on the shore of Lake Erie. The museum documents the history of rock music and ...

in the

Ahmet Ertegun Ahmet Ertegun (, Turkish spelling: Ahmet Ertegün; ; – December 14, 2006) was a Turkish-American businessman, songwriter, record executive and philanthropist. Ertegun was the co-founder and president of Atlantic Records. He discovered and ch ...

Award category for negotiating ground-breaking long-term agreements for his clients that allow them to maintain creative control of their work.

Family

After graduating from law school, he met his first wife, Yvette Fischer Grubman. She divorced him in 1988 after 19 years of marriage, and died of cancer in 2001 at the age of 58. They had two daughters, their elder being

Lizzie Grubman Elizabeth Grubman (born January 30, 1971) is an American publicist, manager and socialite. In 2002, Grubman served 38 days in jail for an incident where she intentionally backed a Mercedes SUV into a crowd, injuring 16 people. Early life She is t ...

, a celebrity publicist. Their younger daughter Jennifer Grubman Rothenberg holds a BA from Boston University and a J.D. from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, is President of Innovative Philanthropy, and is a member of the Board of Directors of Cardozo Law School. Grubman remarried in 1991, at the

New York Public Library The New York Public Library (NYPL) is a public library system in New York City. With nearly 53 million items and 92 locations, the New York Public Library is the second largest public library in the United States (behind the Library of Congress) ...

. His second wife is Debbie Grubman (née Haimoff), a Manhattan real-estate broker. He is Jewish.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Grubman, Allen Living people Brooklyn Law School alumni People from Crown Heights, Brooklyn American entertainment lawyers New York (state) lawyers City College of New York alumni Year of birth missing (living people) 20th-century American Jews 21st-century American Jews 20th-century American lawyers 21st-century American lawyers