Prepublication Review in the Age of AI

Christopher Perez is a Partner at Donaldson Callif Perez, where he represents independent producers, production companies, writers, and other creative clients across all aspects of film and television development, financing, production, clearance, and distribution. He is co-author of the 5th Edition of Clearance & Copyright, the industry’s leading text on rights clearances, and has been recognized by Variety, the Daily Journal, and California Lawyer for his work on landmark DMCA exemptions for filmmakers. Chris also serves as a board member of the International Documentary Association and as an Adjunct Professor of Law at USC Gould School of Law.

Dale Cohen is Director of the Documentary Film Legal Clinic at UCLA School of Law, where he leads student-clinicians in providing pro bono legal services to documentary filmmakers, and serves as Special Counsel to FRONTLINE, the award-winning PBS documentary series. His extensive career as a media lawyer, litigator, and news executive has spanned organizations including NPR, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Cox Enterprises, and Tribune Company, as well as a litigation partnership at Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal. He earned his B.A. cum laude from Syracuse University and his J.D. cum laude from Northwestern University School of Law, and is co-author of the textbook Media and the Law.

Amanda Harris is an associate attorney at Jassy Vick Carolan LLP.

Prior to joining the firm, Amanda served as a business and legal affairs executive at a premier talent agency, where she provided global representation to clients across film, television, publishing, digital media, commercial endorsements, audio, theater, and book-to-screen adaptations. Before that, she was an associate at a widely respected private law firm in Los Angeles, where she maintained an active pro bono practice alongside her commercial litigation work. She has also studied opera for over 20 years and performed across the country, most recently for the Prime Minister of Montenegro.

Amanda earned her J.D. from Harvard Law School in 2023, where she was recognized with the Dean’s Scholar Award. She received her B.A. with Honors from Stanford University in 2019.

David Shraga is a private mediator specializing in entertainment, media & intellectual property. Having worked on all sides of the Hollywood ecosystem for more than 20 years, David offers rare experience and insight as a neutral.   

For the first dozen years of his career, he was a trial lawyer focused on cases involving talent, entrepreneurs, and bet-the-company litigation in entertainment and media.  He trained as a Senior Associate at the prominent law firm Alschuler Grossman Stein & Kahan LLP before founding his own firm KSW LLP. David then pivoted and for the next decade worked in-house as a studio executive, where he advised studio presidents, top tier producers, and other senior leadership.  His roles have included SVP and Head of Global Television Business & Legal Affairs for Miramax, VP of Business & Legal Affairs for NBCUniversal’s International Television Studio, and Senior Counsel for Legal Affairs at Universal Pictures.  

David is an expert in all aspects of domestic and international development, financing, production and distribution; has overseen billions in deals and budgets, and has negotiated with the top agents, lawyers, talent, studios, and distributors in the global television and film industries. With his uncommon background as both a litigator and in-house dealmaker, David offers a unique understanding of the complex considerations studios, sophisticated parties and their representatives must balance while making deals, while in litigation, and while mediating.  

David was on the Law Review while at the University of Southern California School of Law, externed for the Hon. Dean D. Pregerson (C.D. of Cal.) and received his BA from Yale.

David is also a member of the Executive Committee of the Entertainment Law Section of the Beverly Hills Bar Association; is the Outreach Coordinator and a Co-Host for the Will Work For Food Project – a webinar series which raises donations for food banks around the world; serves as a volunteer mediator for the Los Angeles Superior Court; is a member of the Southern California Mediation Association; is on the volunteer mediation panel for California Lawyers For The Arts; and volunteers with the Western Center on Law & Poverty to train high school peer mediators.