{"id":5359,"date":"2025-04-18T16:25:04","date_gmt":"2025-04-18T16:25:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/joel-katz-powerhouse-attorney-dies-at-80\/"},"modified":"2025-04-18T16:25:04","modified_gmt":"2025-04-18T16:25:04","slug":"joel-katz-powerhouse-attorney-dies-at-80","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/joel-katz-powerhouse-attorney-dies-at-80\/","title":{"rendered":"Joel Katz, Powerhouse Attorney, Dies at 80"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n\tP<\/span>owerhouse attorney Joel Katz<\/strong>, who at one point seemingly represented most of the top executives in the music industry, died today (April 18), peacefully at home, with his wife Rikki by his side.<\/p>\n

\n\tAs the founding chairman of the global entertainment and media practice at Greenberg Traurig,\u00a0Katz was a major kingmaker, not just serving as an attorney, but often placing executives in high-level positions while he looked at the music industry like a giant chessboard.<\/p>\n

\n\tHe also represented artists and industry organizations, including the Recording Academy and Country Music Association, among others, often negotiating landmark television deals that set the standard for future pacts.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Atlanta-based Katz, 80, grew up in the Bronx, but headed south to attend the University of Tennessee Law School on a scholarship while working nights at a Holiday Inn. (The law library at UT now bears his name.)<\/p>\n

\n\tThe first deal Katz negotiation was in 1971 for his client James Brown. In a 2019 interview with Billboard<\/em>, Katz said the biggest thing he learned from Brown was \u201cpatience. He was very patient. He was one of the smartest people I ever met. He wasn\u2019t educated; he had a doctorate of street-ology.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAfter decades at Greenberg Traurig, Katz joined Barnes & Thornburg in 2021, taking with him such clients as then-Universal Music Group Nashville head Mike Dungan<\/strong> and then-Sony Music Nashville chief Randy Goodman<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\n\tKatz was also a major philanthropist, donating much of his time to the City of Hope and T.J. Martell. As he advised younger attorneys to Billboard<\/em>, \u201cDon\u2019t do everything you do for money. Give back to the organizations that are good. Help people do things. It will make you a better lawyer, it will make you a better person, and you will rise in the community of this business.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThis is developing story. More to come.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Powerhouse attorney Joel Katz, who at one point seemingly represented most of the top executives in the music industry, died today (April 18), peacefully at home, with his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5360,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1585,2913,5566,5567,5568],"class_list":["post-5359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-attorney","tag-dies","tag-joel","tag-katz","tag-powerhouse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5359","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=5359"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5359\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}