Jonathan Handel

Jonathan Handel is an American entertainment lawyer, journalist, author and commentator.^[1][2][3]

Jonathan Handel
Jonathan Handel
Education	Harvard University (AB, JD)

Handel is an expert on entertainment labor, having reported extensively on the WGA, SAG-AFTRA, DGA, IATSE and other unions.^[4] He has previously served as outside Special Counsel to SAG-AFTRA, and on the legal staff of the WGA.^{[5][6][7][8][2]}

Prior to this, he was a journalist at The Hollywood Reporter, and has also written for the Los Angeles Times, Variety and Puck.^[9][10][11] Additionally, he has authored five books and is an adjunct professor at Southwestern Law School and lecturer in law at the USC Gould School of Law.^[12][13]

He currently practices entertainment and technology law at TroyGould and serves as an executive at WIO.^[14][15]

Education and career

Handel studied Applied Mathematics, graduating from Harvard College in 1982, and Harvard Law School in 1990.^[16][17]

He began his law career clerking for Judge Irving Goldberg on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in Dallas, TX.^[18]

In 1991, he was selected to serve as a federal associate independent counsel to investigate alleged White House political misconduct related to the search of then-Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton's passport files.^{[19][2][20][21]}

In the months prior to the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike, Handel began publishing a series of blogs on the Huffington Post, leading to him becoming recognized as an expert regarding Hollywood unions.^{[2][22][23][24]}

From 2010 to 2020, Handel was a journalist at The Hollywood Reporter.^[25][26]

In 2020, he was appointed as outside Special Counsel to SAG-AFTRA.^[8]

As of 2022, Handel serves as an executive at WIO, an entertainment software company.^[27][28][29]

Handel regularly provides legal analysis for media outlets such as The New York Times, BBC, Reuters, NBC, CNN, ABC and CBS.^{[30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37]}

Residuals

Handel is an expert on entertainment royalties, having authored the only book on residuals.^[38][39][40]

Personal

Handel is the son of late sociologist Gerald S. Handel.

Works

• Entertainment residuals: a full color guide, Hollywood Analytics, 2014^[39]
• The New Zealand Hobbit crisis: how Warner Bros. bent a government to its will and crushed an attempt to unionize The hobbit, Hollywood Analytics, 2013^[41]
• Entertainment labor: an interdisciplinary bibliography, Hollywood Analytics, 2013^[42]
• Hollywood on strike!: an industry at war in the internet age, Hollywood Analytics, 2011^[43]
• How to write loi's and term sheets, Jonathan Handel, 2009^[44]