Revealed: Billboard’s 2021 Top Music Lawyers

Billboard

April 5, 2021

Neville Johnson
Founding partner, Johnson & Johnson

Johnson claimed a recent win in settling a class action suit for the Rick Nelson Company — the estate of the 1950s teen idol — against Sony Music Entertainment over deductions on foreign streaming royalties. A court filing in September put the amount of the settlement at $12.7 million. And Johnson has found strength in numbers with other class action suits. “This has been a tremendous boon to the music industry as the clients could not afford individually to vindicate the rights at issue,” he says. “As a result, tens of thousands of musicians have been helped.”

Most Lasting Legacy of 2020 Will Be: “The dominance of social media and new methods of promotion.”