Dallas, Nashville Law Firms Merge on MUSIC

In a music industry struggling to match the beat of the Internet economy, two law firms have come together over the promise of Texas.

The Lone Star State's rising musical profile – both in Austin and in the developing music scene of Denton – and its abundant investor capital have led a boutique Nashville

 

entertainment law firm to unite with a longtime Dallas firm.

"We're going to make a major commitment to the state of Texas," said Jim Zumwalt, of the new firm Shackelford, Zumwalt & Hayes, as it will be known in Nashville, Tenn. That will be an extension of the Dallas firm Shackelford, Melton & McKinley.

"I can't say we're going to go [into Texas] and blow every band we find up big, as we can't manufacture hit songs," said Zumwalt, who has run his Nashville firm for 35 years. "But Texas is a really robust market, and I'm going to be spending a lot of time there."

Zumwalt and his Nashville partners represent acts such as Faith Hill

 , Creed and Aaron Neville and helped launch recording careers of artists such as Toby Keith.

The firm's roots are in rhythm and blues acts, but its artist list spans all kinds of music, as Nashville is much more than just a country-Western music producer these days, he said.

While Nashville's reputation as a music nexus continues to grow, Texas has a lot more venture capital that can finance bands, recording labels and other entertainment ventures, said Zumwalt, who counts himself among the first to sign bands out of Austin's South by Southwest music festival.

Entertainment law isn't as stuffy as other major legal practice areas, and Zumwalt said he has politely rebuffed merger offers from national firms looking to capitalize on his firm's Nashville connections.

His friendship with John Shackelford laid the groundwork for a cultural fit between the small Nashville office and the nearly 40 lawyers at Shackelford's Dallas firm.

The music business that used to hang on album sales has been crushed by Internet distribution, and in some ways has reverted to the early 1960s model built solely around hit singles, Zumwalt said.

With record sales down sharply through the recession, it's a tough time to be in the business, and music acts need all the legal help they can muster to get introduced to different people.

Building a band's popularity through social-media tools requires a lot of scouting and patience, and the law firm merger puts resources in Nashville, Dallas and Austin in a way that other entertainment-related firms can't match, he said.

Zumwalt said he brought radio personality RedBeard to Dallas and used him as his "ears and eyes" for the Dallas music scene.

A couple of Dallas-area acts, Joker's Deck and Calhoun, are quite promising to Zumwalt, who intends to spend time understanding Denton's growing music scene and learning more about North Texas acts. In turn, Shackelford lawyers will spend more time in Nashville scouting for business.

The merged firms won't be just about music; they'll focus on technology and intellectual property rights aspects of entertainment, as well as general business litigation that Shackelford's office in Dallas has always done.

"It boils down to us finding great songs," Zumwalt said. "This merger gives us a bigger platform to do that."

Posted via email from Music Business Information