Don Zakarin (BS Management Science, UB School of Management ’72) has been distinguished as not only one of New York Metro Area’s top litigators but one of the top litigators in the United States. Working with well-known musical artists, including, Mariah Carey, Enrique Iglesias, Kanye West and Britney Spears in copyright infringement cases and contractual disputes, Zakarin has secured multi-million dollar recoveries for his clients throughout his career. Currently, Don Zakarin is Chairman of Pryor Cashman’s Litigation Group. Zakarin will be presenting “Entertainment, Arts and Media Law Panel” at UBC2C.
At what point in your undergraduate career at UB did you decide to take the next step into the law field and what made you decide to attend the New York University School of Law after graduating with a BS in management science?
This is sort of a long-ish story. I came to UB with the intention of going to law school. I chose management science, perhaps ill-advisedly on some bases, because I thought that a knowledge of business and finance would be useful in the law (I think I could have broadened my educational horizons with a more liberal arts education but my understanding of business has been helpful). I knew nothing about law when I came to UB but I liked arguing and basically thought my overall hostility would be channeled usefully if I were to become a litigator. That much has proved true.
As for NYU, that too was partially an accident. I had no desire to go to law school in NY. I wanted to go to Harvard actually, but Harvard, for reasons that it perhaps can better explain, had less of an interest in having me (we have gotten back at Harvard by my son choosing Princeton over Harvard for college). I so little wanted to be in NY that I didn’t even apply to Columbia (it actually sent me a letter asking me to apply, presumably based on my LSATs). I got into Michigan and Berkley but when push came to shove, I wasn’t ready to live in California and I thought NYU was a better school than Michigan. So, that’s how I ended up at NYU.
After graduating from the New York University School of Law, were you able to immediately begin working at a successful law firm, or can you tell us how you worked your way into Chairman at Pryor Cashman LLP?
Another long-ish story. I didn’t know it at the time, but I graduated from law school in the midst of a recession that caused law firms to reduce hiring. I had an offer from a firm but the firm had a reputation as being a “sweatshop” and that it was an unpleasant place to work (it still exists and is still successful). So, despite the difficult market, I rejected their offer and I was the talk of the law school for a while for doing so; some people were impressed that I would do it and some undoubtedly thought I was an idiot. With the benefit of hindsight, I lean towards those who thought I was an idiot.
When September came around, I still did not have a job so I started working part time for a law firm, digesting depositions. In November, I passed the bar and the same day I received an offer from what was then a successful mid-size firm to work in bankruptcy litigation. I stayed there two years, learned bankruptcy and litigation, but I did not want to exclusively do bankruptcy work and I had a fight with one of the senior partners, so I started interviewing with other firms. I received an offer from Pryor Cashman, which I initially turned down because I was in the middle of interviewing with the United States Attorney’s Office in New York. A few months later, Pryor Cashman called me again to see if I might be interested and I agreed to join. I was the 10th litigator at the firm (5 partners and 5 associates, of which I was the youngest). It was a firm of about 25 lawyers when I joined in January of 1978.
Becoming Chairman of the Litigation Department is mostly a function of getting old, and partially a function of having children, which I will explain below.
But here are the factors that resulted in my being lucky enough to have had a pretty successful career.
First, I got to work with very smart people and learned how to litigate from them. In the summer of 1979, I was the third attorney on a case that went to trial — one of the more famous copyright infringement cases in history: George Harrison’s “My Sweet Lord/He’s So Fine” Copyright Case. I got to work, nonstop, with the senior partner in this firm, Gideon Cashman (still one of the smartest people I have ever met) and to see how a case was put together and tried. Although I had been working for four years by that time and doing fairly well, this experience galvanized me. I saw how hard you have to work to prepare a case. I saw that the key was to be better prepared than your adversary. I saw that while brains and creativity are critical, there is nothing more important than plain dedication and the willingness to work as hard as it takes. Winning trials is not so much luck as it is preparation. Some skills as a trial lawyer are innate. You have them or not, but some skills are simply the product of hard work and preparation.
Second, and probably as important as the first, I have been lucky in acquiring business. The way I got business shows you that you never know how things happen in life. I married fairly late in life (I was 37) and had my first child at 38. My then secretary’s wife (he was a pretty famous musician from Long Island by the name of Elliot Murphy) was a personal trainer and she trained a couple of women who also had sons around the same time that my son was born. My wife became friendly with these women and our sons became friendly (they all ended up going to camp together and playing sports against each other through high school and remain friends even though they go to different schools). I became friendly with the fathers, one of whom was the Chairman of EMI Music. Eventually, he sent me some business (based not so much on family friendship but on advise from other people in the industry I had represented) and that first case has grown into a long-term representation of the EMI Companies and its executives. That relationship provided me with some prominence in the music industry and from it came the representation of SONY, Universal, BMG and the representation of artists and executives in the industry.
And out of this confluence of events, hard work, getting old and getting lucky, comes a career.
With the wide variety of litigation you handle each year, what types of cases or clients do you prefer working with?
I think many people would assume that I would be most interested in the music or film cases I have done because there are famous people involved. I have taken the depositions of people such as Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Madonna and Dianna Ross. I have defended Joan Collins, Mariah Carey, Jermaine Dupri, Janet Jackson, Robert Deniro, Martin Scorcese, Sylvester Stallone and Enrique Iglesias. I handled the first “Aids Fear” case in the 1980s, representing the estate of Rock Hudson (which was an amazingly interesting case, actually) but the cases I have liked the best over the years have tended to be the more complicated business and securities cases.
I handled a very complicated foreign exchange trading case over five years in which we had to piece together a massive fraud from thousands of pieces of paper. I had to learn the business of Forex Trading so that I knew it better than the traders I was deposing. I loved the challenge.
I had one of the highest profile securities cases some years ago in which I represented Al Dunlap, a famous business executive (known as Chainsaw Al) who was sued for securities fraud in connection with Sunbeam Corporation. It consisted of about 5 different cases and the issues were complex and interesting. There were millions of pages of documents and probably over 100 depositions. The case settled on the very eve of what would have been a 6 week trial.
These are the sorts of cases I have really loved the best.
Is there a monumental case that you feel sticks out from the rest in your career?
That’s really hard to say, probably the Al Dunlap securities cases because the lawyers involved were among the best in the country and it required so much work and effort. It was really a precursor to the Worldcom and Enron cases.
But then again, there was a pretty famous music copyright case I tried in 1987 involving the song “Feelings.” That was a great case and the trial was truly amazing. Also, I had just gotten married and I took a week of depositions in Paris during the second week of my honeymoon (which my wife actually tolerated).
So, those two for different reasons probably stick out the most.
What is your favorite memory of UB?
I went to UB during the campus unrest over the Vietnam War. It was a pretty interesting time. The school closed down after Kent State but there had been a student strike earlier that year so there were not a whole lot of classes the second semester of my sophomore year.
I had a large group of close friends and we have remained close now for nearly 40 years. We all lived in apartments off campus (by the Main Street campus) and hung out at each others apartments endlessly. I think that the best memories I have would be of my friends and just being with them.
If you could go back to UB now as a student, what course would you take to better prepare yourself for Law School?
I would not take any courses to specifically prepare me for law school. Law is so broad and the real key to law is logic. I had friends in law school that were math majors because higher level math is all logic.
Accounting is always a good course, just to understand how financial statements work and to be able to read them is a very helpful thing.
Writing, though, is probably the most critical skill in the law, at least for litigation. If I had to do it over again, I would take writing courses and seminars. I edit papers everyday. It is amazing to me how many smart young lawyers cannot write to save their lives. It is a skill that can be learned and it is worth learning.
What types of students do you think will benefit most from the talk that you have planned for this year’s Coast to Coast symposium?
Well, to say I have planned the talk yet is an overstatement but obviously I have been thinking about it. I hope that I can be interesting and figure out what people want to hear about. I am not certain yet what would best capture the interest of people.
I can talk about legal issues we see in the Entertainment Litigation Field. I can talk about how I got into the field (accident mostly). I can talk about some of my experiences in cases. Most probably, I will try to figure out a way to combine all of these things.
I think anyone who is thinking about a career in law or more specifically media and entertainment law, would, hopefully, find it interesting and hopefully as well we will have a panel of interesting people who can talk about their experiences as well.
What types of things do you enjoy doing in your free time?
I read. I play golf. I run. I work out. I spend time with my family. We travel when we can. I veg out.
What advice would you offer students and recent graduates looking to make their name into the courtrooms?
Be prepared to work really really hard for the first 5 years of your career to learn as much as you can and then after you have developed a base, be prepared to work hard the rest of your life.
Read about successful trial lawyers (I read and still read books about or by trial lawyers: F. Lee Bailey, Louis Nizer, Arthur Liman).
You have to be driven to be as good as you can. Nothing novel about this. No matter what you choose to do in life, unless you love it and unless it is a labor you love, you will resent having to devote so much time and effort to it.
Find your passion and pursue it.
I have been incredibly lucky. I went into law completely naive. I knew nothing and it was a decision made when I was around 11 years old but it turned out to be the right place for me. Not that something else might not have been just as good but I have loved my career and working at it has never felt like a sacrifice or punishment.
So, love what you do and do it as well as you can.
