Variety’s Legal Impact Report 2025: Meet Hollywood’s Top Entertainment Attorneys
- Leslie
- Apr 9
- 2 min read
Partners: Jeff B. Cohen, Esq., Jonathan Gardner, Esq.
Like everyone else, the entertainment attorneys honored on this year’s Legal Impact list — who’ll be gathering at the Variety Power of Law Breakfast, presented by City National Bank, on April 9 — are dealing with progressively more jarring cycles of disruption. Still, they keep working on behalf of their clients. The deals may be slightly less plentiful and, on balance, less rich for those on the transactional side, but litigators are looking at increasingly full calendars, thanks in part to a new administration in Washington, D.C., determined to take a wrecking ball to the status quo.
Jeff Cohen and Jonathan Gardner
Co-founders
Cohen Gardner
Gardner’s first memory of Cohen is when he walked into their offices on the Universal lot, where they worked as in-house attorneys, and handed him a copy of “What Makes Sammy Run?,” Budd Schulberg’s classic novel about an amoral Hollywood climber. Fortunately, it didn’t scare Gardner off, and the pair eventually teamed to launch their now-23-year-old boutique firm. In recent months, Gardner has cut deals for writer/directors Ryan Coogler (Warner Bros.’ “Sinners”), Megan Park (Amazon series “Sterling Point”), Ava DuVernay (new Netflix doc), Boots Riley (“I Love Boosters”), Bong Joon Ho (untitled animated feature) and Carmen Emmi (“Plainclothes”), while Cohen, a onetime child actor, has brokered pacts for Michelle Yeoh (Amazon’s “Blade Runner” series, Paramount+’s “Star Trek: Section 31”), Lil Rel Howery (directorial debut, “Haunted Heist”) and Ronny Chieng (Netflix special “Love to Hate It”), as well as his sister, screenwriter Eydie Faye (Disney+’s “Camp Rock 3” and “The Slumber Party”) and his “The Goonies” co-star Ke Huy Quan (“With Love”).
Dealbreaker: “Wine in plastic cups,” says Gardner.
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