{"id":9763,"date":"2026-02-01T03:22:28","date_gmt":"2026-02-01T03:22:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wmgs-paul-robinson-receives-entertainment-law-initiative-award-recap\/"},"modified":"2026-02-01T03:22:28","modified_gmt":"2026-02-01T03:22:28","slug":"wmgs-paul-robinson-receives-entertainment-law-initiative-award-recap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wmgs-paul-robinson-receives-entertainment-law-initiative-award-recap\/","title":{"rendered":"WMG\u2019s Paul Robinson Receives Entertainment Law Initiative Award: Recap"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n\tWarner Music Group (WMG) general counsel Paul Robinson <\/strong>was honored with the Recording Academy\u2019s 2026 Entertainment Law Initiative (ELI) Service Award on Friday (Jan. 30).<\/p>\n

\n\tRobinson, who has been the top lawyer at WMG since 2006, had initially been set to receive the award last year, before the 2025 annual ELI event was canceled due to the Los Angeles wildfires. He finally received his flowers during Friday\u2019s luncheon at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in L.A.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\u201cEven though it\u2019s taken an extra 12 months for me to join this distinguished club, I\u2019m absolutely thrilled to become its 20th member,\u201d Robinson said during his acceptance speech.<\/p>\n

\n\tRobinson took the opportunity to share four key pieces of advice with young music lawyers in the room. Rule number one: \u201cIt\u2019s not about you,\u201d he said, noting, \u201cOur only agenda should be our client\u2019s agenda. We need to detach our egos from the process.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe second rule, said Robinson, is that lawyers must \u201cceaselessly adapt and lean into the future.\u201d He noted that the music business has dealt with massive tech disruption over the years, from CDs to streaming and now AI.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIn the immortal words of R.E.O. Speedwagon, \u2018Roll with the changes,\u2019\u201d said Robinson, whose team at WMG is the first major to have negotiated licensing deals with both of the two biggest music AI companies, Suno and Udio.<\/p>\n

\n\tRobinson\u2019s third and fourth principles were that lawyers should always \u201ccommunicate simply and concisely,\u201d and \u201cbring positivity to solving problems.\u201d He added: \u201cIf humanly and legally possible, our advice must include some kind of yes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cLet\u2019s face it: we are so fortunate doing what we do,\u201d Robinson said. \u201cWe have genuinely inspiring and enviable jobs in the service of artists and songwriters and their music. Excellence in our profession is what ELI stands for. All of us in this room are standard-bearers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tRobinson thanked the Recording Academy for the \u201cincredible honor\u201d of the ELI Award, as well as his family, colleagues and many mentors in the music business. One of those mentors actually presented Robinson with the award: Fred Wistow<\/strong>, WMG\u2019s first general counsel.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn his remarks, Wistow described Robinson as \u201ca man who cares more, knows more, works more and endures more than anyone else around.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cPeople are proud to know him, and I certainly am,\u201d said Wistow.<\/p>\n

\n\tRecording Academy CEO Harvey Mason jr.<\/strong> also lauded Robinson during the event for his \u201ccommitment to the broader music community.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Warner Music Group (WMG) general counsel Paul Robinson was honored with the Recording Academy\u2019s 2026 Entertainment Law Initiative (ELI) Service Award on Friday (Jan. 30). Robinson, who has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9764,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1202,1802,6340,153,1128,4280,7415,5825,7414],"class_list":["post-9763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-award","tag-entertainment","tag-initiative","tag-law","tag-paul","tag-recap","tag-receives","tag-robinson","tag-wmgs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9763","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=9763"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9763\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}