Len Egert is General Counsel/General Manager at the San Francisco Ballet

What do you like about being a lawyer who works in the entertainment industry? 

I love film, television, live performance theater and arts. It was a way to interact and engage with artists who are brilliant and creative in this labor world. I was representing a group of Sesame Street writers in collective bargaining. They are the most talented, brilliant people because they write for adults, parents and children. At that time, the toy Tickle Me Elmo came out and it was a huge sensation. We had started negotiations, and the company was reaping millions of dollars off this creation, that this group of writers came up with. The contract at the time gave them a small share of merchandising revenue. We went into this negotiation, and we were able to harness the writers at the time to a larger share of the character and the intellectual property that they created. Sesame Street writers were represented by the Writers Guild. Most of the basic terms were set forth in the collective bargaining agreement. To this day, even though it was decades ago, it was one of the best bargaining sessions that I had. It was one thing for them to share in the revenue and I think that what that did for me was give me a sense of empowerment. 

What’s been the biggest surprise of your current job? 

I think it's just the volume. There are positions where you have a team. You have a legal department that you have to manage. Here at San Francisco Ballet, it's a different structure. There's an operations team, which I oversee, but on the legal front. I'm sort of a one-person band. There are multiple needs coming at me from different ships. You need to prioritize, you need to communicate with people and you need to set expectations about what's doable. My job was unique because the general manager position had opened, but they didn't have an in-house counsel. When I talked to the leadership here, we talked about the outside legal billing and the legal requirements they were looking for. I looked at that list, and throughout the years, I've done much of it. I told them I could fill in and help here. I took on the legal part, but also the operations management part as well.