Firm debuts symposium on entertainment, sports law

"Show me the money!"

Remember that memorable quote from the football star (Cuba Gooding Jr.) to his agent (Tom Cruise) in the 1996 film, "Jerry McGuire"?

It was filmed at the intersection of ego and greed.

Ken Abdo, a veteran attorney in the entertainment and sports law worlds, would argue that representing artists and athletes is interesting, albeit not quite as volatile as the Cruise-Gooding concoction.

Abdo, a well-traveled former national chairman of the American Bar Association's entertainment-and-sports forum, will host the first such symposium by a Minneapolis firm, which will consider topics ranging from music recording agreements in the digital age to "athletes' rights" and "entertainment law ethics."

"We all lecture and publish nationally," Abdo said of himself and six colleagues at Lommen, Abdo, Cole, King & Stageberg. "We thought, 'Why not just get together and do this locally?'"

The Nov. 13 forum in Minneapolis at the IDS Center costs $50 for lawyers and $25 for students, including lunch, and offers continuing legal education credits.

Perhaps most importantly, the guy started playing drums with a ragtag band called the Pythons, out of Washburn High School in the early 1970s. And it was only a decade ago that a daughter replaced him in the family band, "the Abdomen," which features two of his musician sons and which this week is performing in Los Angeles.

One particularly interesting client: Sierra Leone's Refugee All Stars, for whom Abdo negotiated recording contracts with a major label. The band's 2006 album, "Living Like a Refugee," is born of a fusion-style music the All Stars created at refugee camps in South Africa. The band is collaborating on humanitarian ventures with Amnesty International and the United Nations, and its story of hardship and desperation was featured in the Leonardo DiCaprio movie "Blood Diamond." Aerosmith and big-name bands have invited the All Stars to appear in concert with them on several occasions.

Adbo's entertainment-law partners include veteran Bob Donnelly, who runs the New York office. Donnelly's clients have amassed an impressive 38 platinum and gold albums over the years. Another Abdo lawyer, Lee Hutton III, a former Gopher football player, will present at the symposium on representing professional athletes.

Green architecture

John Cuningham founded Cuningham Group Architecture in his living room in Minneapolis 40 years ago in 1968.

The Minneapolis headquarters is located in a 125-year-old onetime mattress factory at St. Anthony Main that's about to be renovated in a bid to cut energy consumption by 40 percent.

Cuningham Group, which formed its "green committee" in 1994, increasingly focuses on "sustainable design" that John Cuningham recognized could incorporate the best of design with "clean-earth practices" through incorporation of recycled material and energy-conserving techniques and technology.

Most recently, the Minnesota AFL-CIO unveiled its new sustainable pavilion at the Minnesota State Fair. Designed by Cuningham Group, it is the first-ever "green" building at the Fair.

This summer, to celebrate the firm's 40th anniversary, Cuningham brought together 200 employees from around the globe to work on housing projects in Minneapolis with Habitat for Humanity.

Visit some interesting projects of the firm at www.cuningham.com.

Joe Anthony, one of the top business litigators in the Twin Cities, will be named general counsel of the United States Golf Association (USGA) on Feb. 7, 2009, the date of the USGA's annual meeting. Anthony, an avid golfer, will continue as a trial lawyer and president of Anthony Ostlund Baer Louwagie & Ross.