{"id":10434,"date":"2026-04-25T10:20:02","date_gmt":"2026-04-25T10:20:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/chance-the-rapper-lawyer-on-pat-the-manager-contract-trial-interview\/"},"modified":"2026-04-25T15:48:57","modified_gmt":"2026-04-25T15:48:57","slug":"chance-the-rapper-lawyer-on-pat-the-manager-contract-trial-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/chance-the-rapper-lawyer-on-pat-the-manager-contract-trial-interview\/","title":{"rendered":"Chance the Rapper Lawyer on Pat the Manager Contract Trial: Interview"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n\tPrecious Jacobs-Perry<\/strong>, a Chicago-based partner at the law firm Jenner & Block, says Chance the Rapper \u201chas a reputation that precedes him in in this city\u201d for both musical excellence and business acumen. After representing Chance at trial against his longtime manager Pat Corcoran<\/strong>, Jacobs-Perry says she can confirm that this reputation holds true.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cHe is a man of principle,\u201d Jacobs-Perry tells Billboard <\/em>of Chance, adding that the rapper \u201cis in control\u201d of several businesses that \u201call start and end with him. He takes his role seriously, not only as an artist, but also as the head of all these different businesses,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

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\n\tThe business activities of Chance (born Chancelor Bennett) were the subject of the rapper\u2019s Chicago court battle against Corcoran, commonly known as Pat the Manager. Corcoran sued in 2020, alleging Chance owed him nearly $4 million in commissions, including under a so-called \u201csunset clause\u201d that he said should have gotten him paid for three years post-termination. Chance maintained that there was no such sunset clause, and the nearly $11 million he paid Corcoran over the years was more than sufficient<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat made this case so novel was that Corcoran and Chance never had a written contract; they always operated under a handshake deal. While this sort of casual arrangement is common in artist-manager relationships, there\u2019s very little settled case law about how to interpret oral contracts. This meant that after years of litigation, a judge ruled the dispute had to be decided by a jury. That jury ultimately sided with Chance after a two-week trial last month, rejecting all of Corcoran\u2019s claims.<\/p>\n

\n\tChance also won on his counterclaims for breach of contract and tortious interference, which alleged that Corcoran took kickbacks and improperly structured business dealings to benefit himself. The one point of loss for Chance was that the jury awarded him only $35 on these counterclaims. In a statement following the verdict, Corcoran\u2019s lawyer Jay Scharkey <\/strong>said, \u201cWe respect the jury\u2019s decision, but the message to music managers is clear: Get it in writing. The jury award of $35 speaks to how seriously the jury viewed Chance\u2019s case.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tJacobs-Perry says this $35 award was out of $98,000 Chance was seeking, not the $1 million number that\u2019s been floated in some reports. She also notes that Chance\u2019s financial damages could be significantly boosted following another mini-trial on a remaining breach of fiduciary duty counterclaim, which must be decided by a judge rather than the jury under the law. This second trial, scheduled to begin May 27, could see Chance walk away with as much as $11 million from Corcoran.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\u201cWe don\u2019t want people to think that it\u2019s not worth fighting for your rights when you believe that you\u2019re being taken advantage of,\u201d says Jacobs-Perry of why she thinks these counterclaims are important. The attorney discussed this and more during an extended interview with Billboard<\/em>. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThis conversation has been edited for length and clarity.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n\tWhat pieces of evidence do you think were most crucial for the jury to return a verdict in your favor when it came to that sunset clause?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tWe had two pieces of critical evidence that I described as smoking guns in this case. First, Pat himself wrote a five-page email in March of 2014 to Chance\u2019s lawyer detailing what he believed the agreement was. What was missing? The alleged sunset and post-termination provisions. Then in 2019, he again wrote to Chance\u2019s lawyer when they were thinking about restructuring. He wrote, \u201cTo date, here\u2019s what we had.\u201d It was 15% of net. That\u2019s it. Nothing about a sunset. Nothing about a post-termination provision. Never writing down anything about any obligations that would extend beyond his termination. <\/p>\n

\n\tWe had those two critical pieces of evidence regarding what he believed in real time the agreement was. And then we had Chance\u2019s testimony that he did not agree to this kind of provision and explaining why he, as an independent artist and someone who believes that artists should own their art, would never have agreed to any of that. And I think putting all that together, what the parties actually agreed to in 2013 became very clear.<\/p>\n

\n\tYou also won a verdict on your counterclaims against Pat for breach of contract and tortious interference. What pieces of evidence do you think led the jury to reach that conclusion?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tThere were a couple of different buckets. One was his website, chanceraps.com. Pat registered that in his name back in 2012 or 2013, which is a complete violation of their relationship, because that is Chance\u2019s website that was being used to conduct his merchandise business. The second bucket was merchandise vendors. Pat was picking a vendor and then saying to the vendor, \u201cI\u2019m going to bring all this business to you, including Chance\u2019s business, and I want a kickback.\u201d If it is your job to negotiate the best price for an artist, then the fact that you\u2019re negotiating this kickback for yourself inevitably means that you are not then negotiating the best price for the artist on the merchandise.<\/p>\n

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\n\tThe other bucket was a movie deal where Scott Bernstein<\/strong>, who was the producer for Straight Outta Compton<\/em> and Respect<\/em>, featuring Aretha Franklin\u2019s story, came to Pat as Chance\u2019s manager to figure out a project that he could do with Chance, and [Pat] cut himself into that deal. And so instead of it being a 50-50, split between Mr. Bernstein\u2019s company and Chance\u2019s company, it then became one-third, one-third and one-third, including Pat and his company. Pat\u2019s position was that there was nothing wrong with any of this, that he should be able to do these things, and that the evidence did not support that they were a violation of his duties. The jury decisively said this was not the case \u2013 that a manager, when you are interacting with third parties, your goal should always be to act in the best interest of your principal. And the testimony and the documents showed that was not happening here.<\/p>\n

\n\tDo you still view the jury\u2019s decision on the counterclaims as meaningful even though they awarded only $35?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tWhat came out of that decision was very critical: Managers and other third-party agents will be held accountable if they are out in the world doing things outside the purview of their artist and things that are not in that artist\u2019s best interest. And the jury was very decisive on that. They said, \u201cYou breached the contract because you were engaging in this behavior, and you violated the law because you tortiously interfered with Chance\u2019s business relationships with third parties.\u201d That was a decisive outcome, and I think it\u2019s an important one that should be focused on, especially when you talk about precedent.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat potential damages remain for Chance\u2019s breach of fiduciary duty counterclaim against Pat, which still needs to be decided by a judge?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tThis is why this case, I believe, is so important and precedential for third-party managers and agents: What you risk is a full forfeiture of the compensation you have been paid during the time that you were breaching your fiduciary duty. During that entire time, Chance paid Pat over $11 million pursuant to a handshake deal because he is a man of his word and he did honor his agreement. Chance even paid him almost half a million dollars after he was terminated. And so now what we have is a jury who has determined that he breached his contract with Chance, and we have a determination that he engaged in tortious conduct.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn Illinois, agents are fiduciaries. And so if during the entire time you were breaching your fiduciary duties to your principal and your artist, then that entire amount is at risk \u2014\u00a0so the over $11 million. It may seem harsh, but in the state of Illinois, that\u2019s our public policy. But the judge gets to decide the extent and the time period he finds that he was breaching his fiduciary duties. It doesn\u2019t have to be the entire period, even though that is what our position would be based on how the evidence came out at trial. The court will get to decide whether it\u2019s everything, or whether it\u2019s some smaller portion of the whole.<\/p>\n

\n\tOn a more personal level, what was it like working with Chance as a client?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tHe is an incredible human being, and I am very impressed by his decision to stand on principle. Because being an independent artist means so much, and because it is so important that independent artists and artists across the board be protected, he was willing to stand on principle and fight back against something that he absolutely did not agree to. To stand up and say: Managers, you can\u2019t retroactively try to insert complicated provisions into an agreement that were not agreed to. At his core, he believes in this. He\u2019s spoken about how the industry has historically treated Black artists across the board. And so this was so important to him \u2013 it was correcting history. Just because you want to take something doesn\u2019t mean you get to do it. He is a very impressive individual. I literally take my hat off to him for standing on principle for not only himself, but doing something that will have an impact on others who someday someone may take advantage [of]. We have someone who stood up, and now there\u2019s precedent for saying that these things are wrong.<\/p>\n


\"Billboard
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Precious Jacobs-Perry, a Chicago-based partner at the law firm Jenner & Block, says Chance the Rapper \u201chas a reputation that precedes him in in this city\u201d for both […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10435,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[573,1462,3050,107,2511,7592,2278,342],"class_list":["post-10434","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-chance","tag-contract","tag-interview","tag-lawyer","tag-manager","tag-pat","tag-rapper","tag-trial"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10434","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10434"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10434\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10449,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10434\/revisions\/10449"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}