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April 19, 2018
The Chapel
$100,200 in total fundraising

Winner & Judges' Choice Award: Jimmy's Brother of Farella Braun + Martel / Winston & Strawn rocking for Rocket Dog Rescue

It was an electric night at The Chapel for the 6th Annual Law Rocks San Francisco! Seven bands of legal professionals rocked hard for their favorite local nonprofits before a energetic crowd! Before the night ended the funds raised hit $100,000! Once the four categories were calculated the winner was once again Jimmy's Brother of Farella Braun + Martel LLP and Winston & Strawn LLP rocking for Rocket Dog Rescue! A ton of gratitude to every band and each band member!

A giant thank you to sponsors Walkup, Melodia, Kelly & Schoenberger, Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, LLP, First Republic Bank, Hanson Bridgett, Lionshare Partners, Greenberg Traurig, LLP, Latham & Watkins, Winston & Strawn LLP, and Kessenick, Gamma, and Free! Law Rocks would be impossible without your support.

Giant thanks to the esteemed Rock Panel: Shawn Dailey, Hilary Gevondyan, Tony Berman, Don Hardy, and Amanda Horn, our emcee, Aaron Axelsen, as well as the awesome team at the The Chapel.

Lastly huge thanks to the awesome audience! You rock!!

Event Fact Sheet

Featured

12th Root of 2

Starring legal talent from Hanson Bridgett; Kessenick, Gamma and Free; Peter Logan Law Offices
Rocking for St. Anthony's San Francisco and Blue Bear School of Music

Back for its 6th appearance at Law Rocks, 12th Root of Two plays tunes from the Rolling Stones, the Who and other classic rock bands. Band members give back to the community, through Bar service, community volunteer activities, and playing for numerous charitable events in Northern California.

The Combinations

Featuring legal talent from Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP
Rocking for Child Advocates

The Combinations is a large band from the SF office of Morgan Lewis. They combine a wicked horn section, great guitars and bass, amazing vocalists and phenomenal keyboard player. Along with our talented drummer, The Combinations hope that you enjoy their hybrid 70's R&B/Motown,funk vibe. We love playing together and believe that music makes the world a better place! Happy to lend our time and talent to fundraise!

Jimmy's Brother

Featuring legal talent from Farella, Braun + Martel/Winston & Strawn
Rocking for Rocket Dog Rescue

JIMMY'S BROTHER is an LA-based rock n’ roll band. No gimmicks, no nonsense. Just vocals, guitars, and attitude. Formed in 2009 after a chance meeting around an old hotel piano in downtown LA, the band is known for its high energy mix of originals and cover songs, late night impromptu concerts at the Omni, and their legendary one night only show at Casey's. Some boldly claim that Jimmy's Brother is one of the best acts to emerge from Winston & Strawn's Los Angeles office in recent years.

The Latent Defects

Featuring legal talent from Greenberg Traurig
Rocking for Family Violence Appellate Project

Formed in 2017, The Latent Defects (f.k.a. Attractive Nuisance) are proud to return at Law Rocks for the second time! The band, which managed to win “Judges Choice” in two of their last three performances, was formed as Greenberg Traurig’s house band and now includes a Verein of weekend warriors from five different law firms all flying a united banner of rock. They are ramping up a set of unexpected rock covers and retro hits and are proud to be supporting the Family Violence Appellate Project (FVAP) for this upcoming event.

Magnum PI

Featuring legal talent from Walkup, Melodia, Kelly & Schoenberger
Rocking for Bay Area Youth EMT Program

From one of the premier personal injury firms in the Bay Area comes a four-piece rock ensemble that will compel you to move. San Francisco’s own Walkup, Melodia, Kelly & Schoenberger has been delivering 7 and 8 figure results for their clients for over 6 decades. The firm’s first-ever band, Magnum PI, has been melting faces with 7- to 8-minute renditions of classic rock songs for just over 6 months. If the Battle of the Bands doesn’t settle out of court, this outfit is ready to go to verdict.

Montgomery Station

Featuring legal talent from Latham & Watkins
Rocking for All Stars Project of the San Francisco Bay Area

Covering a wide variety of rock and roll classics, Montgomery Station is thrilled to again be a part of this year’s “Law Rocks” Charity Concert! Led by the powerful lead vocals of Peter Wald from Latham & Watkins, Montgomery Station’s roster of talent includes several Latham & Watkins attorneys along with some of their industry friends from Altschuler Berzon, Cornerstone Consulting, and TM Financial Forensics. Originally known as Willful Misconduct, Montgomery Station has been playing together since 2013. The band performs hits by the greats like The Rolling Stones, The Eagles, CCR, and Tom Petty, and regularly performs throughout the Bay Area. Montgomery Station is proud to support and play on behalf of “The All Stars Project of the SF Bay Area” and hopes you enjoy rocking out with the band!

R-23s

Featuring legal talent from Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein
Rocking for Ms. JD

While Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23 enables class actions it may not seem like a wellspring for roots rock and roll -- but it is! And Lieff Cabraser's R23s are in a class all their own as they take personal jurisdiction over your dancin' shoes when they rip their way through gold standards in support of Ms. JD.

Featured

2018

Hilary Gevondyan

"In-house lawyer by day, Rock-star by night. Hilary Gevondyan currently serves as Vice President, Associate General Counsel at First Republic Bank, where she provides strategic and day-to-day advice to executives, bankers, board members, and other key bank personnel regarding consumer and commercial lending transactions, facilities issues, deposit and fraud matters, special assets, and secondary market considerations. Previously, Hilary was in private practice with two large, international law firms where she had a particular niche with regard to hospitality assets and tax credit transactions and led the acquisition, disposition, and/or financing of over 50 hotels and 20 affordable housing projects.

Hilary is passionate about her family, community and civic engagement (including immigration and domestic violence related pro-bono work), singing (founding member and lead singer of 3-time Law Rocks champion band!), and she is currently re-learning how to play the piano. She has been an adjunct professor at University of California’s Berkeley School of Law and Hastings College of the Law. She is a graduate of Leadership San Francisco (sponsored by the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce) and was awarded Silicon Valley Business Journal’s 40 under 40. Hilary received her JD from Harvard Law School (where she was the Editor in Chief of the Harvard Negotiation Law Review) and a BS from Boston University (summa cum laude).

Don Hardy

Don Hardy is an award-winning documentary filmmaker, journalist, and storyteller. Don’s new film, Pick of the Litter, premiered at the Slamdance Film Festival in January 2018 and was purchased by IFC Films/Sundance Selects for theatrical distribution.

Currently, Don is in production on two new feature documentaries: A Band Called Failure about the influential 90’s rock band, Failure and Camp Penn which tells the story of the birth and growth of Sean Penn’s aid organization J/P HRO after a catastrophic earthquake shook Haiti in 2010.

Don’s previous film, Theory of Obscurity, about the legendary music and art collective known as The Residents, premiered at SXSW in 2015 and was released theatrically by Film Movement in April of 2016.

Over the years, Don has won numerous awards for his films, photography, and editing including 6 regional Emmys, 3 Edward R. Murrow Awards, 7 Associated Press Awards, the prestigious San Francisco Bay Area Photographer of the Year Award and more than 15 National Press Photographer Association Awards.

Don’s film The Human Experiment was released in theaters by Area 23a and on VOD by FilmBuff in the spring of 2015. Narrated and executive produced by Oscar® winner Sean Penn, the film lifts the veil on the shocking reality that thousands of untested chemicals are in our everyday products, our homes and inside of us.

Don also served as Director of Photography on Batkid Begins, which premiered at Slamdance in early 2015. Batkid Begins was released by Warner Brothers/New Line Cinema in June 2015.

In 2011, Don’s film, Love Hate Love, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. The film won several film festival awards and had its US broadcast premiere on the Oprah Winfrey Network in 2012.

His first film, Witch Hunt, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2008 and was broadcast on MSNBC.

Tony Berman

Tony Berman (tony@beat-law.com): Tony Berman is the founder of Berman Entertainment and Technology Law, a law firm focusing on issues implicated by the convergence of technology and the entertainment industry. His primary practice areas involve negotiation of entertainment contracts and advising clients on legal issues involved in the formation of entertainment-related organizations and protection of copyrights and trademarks. His clients include record companies, multimedia companies, app developers, game companies, online content distribution companies, professional sport organizations, management companies, film and television production companies, presenters of live entertainment, music venues, publishers, producers, technologists and industry executives as well as writers, performers and artists.

Tony is the editor-in-chief of Multimedia & Entertainment Law Online News (MELON) and a contributing editor to Entertainment Industry Contracts, published by Matthew Bender. He is also an adjunct professor at Golden Gate University School of Law where he teaches Negotiating and Drafting Contracts in the Entertainment Business.

Tony has served on the board of governors of The Recording Academy San Francisco Chapter and the AFTRA Advisory Board of Managers and Attorneys. He was the chair of the Sports and Entertainment Law Section of the Bar Association of San Francisco from 1998 through 1999.

He frequently speaks at entertainment industry conferences including the South By Southwest Music & Media Conference, the SF MusicTech Summit, the NAB Conference, the Summer Music Conference, the Bandwidth Conference, the Global Entertainment and Media Summit, the Music Law Summit West, the Future of Music Policy Summit, California Lawyers for the Arts Music Business Seminar and the Streaming Media Conference. Tony has been interviewed by media including CNN, CNET, NBC, KGO Radio, Tech TV, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Business Week, Wired, The Chicago Tribune, The Los Angeles Times and The San Francisco Chronicle.

Prior to practicing law, Tony was involved in the entertainment industry as a manager, producer, performer and concert presenter.

Amanda Horn

As SVP of Client Services at JND Legal Administration, a premier legal management and administration company, Amanda leads the client services team by driving strategic direction and ensures remarkable client experience. In addition to consulting with key decision makers, Amanda has currently taken on the charge of growing JND’s operations team on the west coast.

Amanda’s career is impressive and began right out of high school where she worked for a legal administration company. While climbing the ranks she put herself through school at UCLA and law school before practicing law herself in the class action sector. Her vast legal background brought her back to legal administration in 2005. During her tenure, Amanda has led many significant music industry administrations – including the Napster Copyright Litigation and the NMPA Late Fee Program, a 2010 out-of-court settlement between major music labels and music-publishers.

But Amanda isn’t all business; she’s quite the rocker herself. Singing since childhood, Amanda has fronted numerous bands. Most recently Amanda is the vocalist for The Multipliers, a band she formed with clients. The Multipliers was specifically assembled to support The Western Center on Law and Poverty for Law Rocks SF, where they took the Great American Music Hall by storm in 2015 and 2016.

Shawn Dailey

Shawn Dailey has been a professional touring and recording musician since the age of 17. Most recently he played bass for Courtney Love / Hole. He has also toured and recorded with several other critically acclaimed rock bands. He currently serves as Executive Director for the Take Me to The River Music Education Initiative, a charity that seeks to inspire a deeper understanding of civil rights, music history, and cross-generational collaboration.