Variety’s 2026 Legal Impact Report: Hollywood’s Top Attorneys

Alan Sacks 
Partner 

Hayden Goldblatt 
Partner 

Sean Jefferson 
Partner 

Larissa Calva-Ruiz 
Counsel, IP finance group 

Adam Macy 
Counsel, IP finance group

Marcie Cleary 
Partner 

Sasha Levites 
Partner

Cleary and Levites are “like sisters,” says Cleary, who helped JB Smoove’s production company, Alternate Side Prods., with deals and the formation of a creative agency, the First Darrin. She sees creators eschewing big media for digital deals in which they can hold on to rights. Among other film and TV pacts, Levites handled all production legal and financing work on documentary “Ask E. Jean,” which examines author E. Jean Carroll’s defamation lawsuits against Donald Trump. “We had to collaborate very closely with her attorney, Roberta Kaplan,” Levites says of the challenging process. “But Robbie really worked with us to find a way to make it work. Everybody really stands behind this film, E. Jean and the story she’s trying to tell.”  The IP finance group works with indie gems (“Josephine,” “Wrong Girls” “Arco”), and small distributors, including Jolt, Joint Venture, Sumerian Pictures and Mubi for “The Mastermind” and “Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma.” Sacks says that they have never been busier. “The money today in the private realm has become highly sophisticated,” he says, noting that the proliferation of distributors has given assurance to financiers. “If there are more buyers out there, it gives them the confidence that there is a buoyancy to the pricing, which gives them an opportunity to recoup.” 

Biz consolidation effect: “What I’m concerned about is that storytelling across film and television will be of a narrower viewpoint and will not reflect the texture that comes from diverse storytellers,” Cleary says. 

Necessary evil: “Funds, structurally, on the financing side, have become more complicated, which means that the time it takes to put a deal together is longer,” notes Sacks.