Joe Wetzel > Latham & Watkins LLP > San Francisco, United States > Lawyer Profile

Latham & Watkins LLP‘s Los Angeles-based practice offers extensive California court experience and an impressive track record in major Hollywood disputes. The firm’s client base encompasses the full spectrum of ESM stakeholders, including production and distribution companies, high net worth individuals, sector associations, and major tech and new media platforms. In addition to handling leading disputes between private clients, the team is also experienced at representing private and public companies in governmental investigations and is trusted to assist with the drafting of new legislation. Team lead Marvin S. Putnam‘s portfolio spans a wide array of contentious and transactional matters, while Jessica Stebbins Bina notably represented celebrity clients in litigation relating to their promotion of FTX. Laura Washington and Robert Ellison both act in public investigations and inquiries relating to ESM matters. Copyright claims represent an essential part of the firm’s ESM work, with Andrew Gass and Joe Wetzel possessing expert capability in digital and music disputes, respectively.

The market-leading US copyright team at Latham & Watkins LLP leverages the bench strength of a global presence spanning North America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East to advise a client roster of major multinationals across such sectors as entertainment, tech, art, and generative AI, on high-stakes infringement litigation, including household names Spotify, Johnson & Johnson, and Live Nation. The practice is led by veteran IP litigators Andrew Gass in San Francisco and Sy Damle in Washington DC, who were lead counsels representing the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts in a widely-covered US Supreme Court case related to the “fair use” of copyrighted content and who are currently defending both OpenAI and Anthropic in widely-covered cases over alleged infringement, along with Digital Millennium Copyright Act expert Allison Levine Stillman in New York, and Joe Wetzel (also San Francisco), a specialist in the music and software sectors. Other key figures include tech litigation specialists Elana Nightingale Dawson at the DC office, and Britt Lovejoy in San Francisco. Gabe Fleet, who arrived at the New York office from broadcasting company iHeartMedia, joined the firm in March 2023.