Allen J. Grubman | |
---|---|
Born |
Crown Heights, Brooklyn, New York |
Education |
City College of New York (
BBA) Brooklyn Law School ( JD) |
Occupation | Entertainment lawyer [1] |
Years active | 1967–present |
Spouse | Debbie Grubman |
Children | Lizzie Grubman and Jennifer Grubman Rothenberg |
Allen J. Grubman is an American entertainment lawyer.
Grubman was born in and grew up in Crown Heights, in Brooklyn, New York. [2] [3] [4] He attended City College of New York, where he earned a BBA [5] While attending Brooklyn Law School, where he earned a J.D., he worked in the mailroom at the William Morris Agency and as a CBS page. [2]
After graduating from Brooklyn Law School in 1967, he wrote various lawyers asking for a job. When an attorney named Walter Hofer met with him, he recalled: "I didn't know what to say, so I tried to get him to like me. I said, 'I really want to work for you, but I don't come from a very wealthy family, so I can't afford to pay you very much to hire me.'" [4] Hofer hired him to work in his music law firm as an associate for $125-per-week ($1,100 in current dollar terms). [2] [4] [6] [7]
Grubman subsequently started his own business. In the 1970s, he signed obscure disco artists who later became popular, and thereafter he signed a number of stars. [2] Grubman started a firm with fellow Brooklyn Law School graduates Paul Schindler ('71) and Arthur Indursky ('67) in 1974, and upon Schindler's departure the firm was known as Grubman Indursky & Shire. [2] [4] In 1982 he landed one of his biggest clients, Bruce Springsteen. [2] His clients include superstars and top record companies and their executives. [2] In 2005, the firm had grown to 30 attorneys. [8]
In 1992 Business Week reported that Grubman was considered "the most powerful lawyer in the music business." [2] In 2001, Newsweek called him "perhaps the music industry's wealthiest and most powerful attorney". [9]
His clients have included Springsteen, Madonna, U2, John Mellencamp, Rod Stewart, Sean "Puffy" Combs, Luther Vandross, Elton John, Jennifer Lopez, Mariah Carey, and Andrew Lloyd Webber. [10] [11]
In May 2020, the hacker group REvil claimed to have hacked and downloaded a huge amount data from Grubman's law firm, and demanded $42 million ransom to prevent release of data. [12] [13] In 2022, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the Ahmet Ertegun Award category for negotiating ground-breaking long-term agreements for his clients that allow them to maintain creative control of their work. [14]
After graduating from law school, he met his first wife, Yvette Fischer Grubman. [15] She divorced him in 1988 after 19 years of marriage, and died of cancer in 2001 at the age of 58. [16]
They had two daughters, their elder being Lizzie Grubman, a celebrity publicist. Their younger daughter Jennifer Grubman Rothenberg holds a BA from Boston University and a J.D. from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, is President of Innovative Philanthropy, and is a member of the Board of Directors of Cardozo Law School. [16] [17] [18] [19] [20]
Grubman remarried in 1991, at the New York Public Library. [19] His second wife is Debbie Grubman (née Haimoff), a Manhattan real-estate broker. [21] [22] [23] He is Jewish. [24]
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