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Legal
George Clinton sues his former lawyers
By CMU Editorial | Published on Thursday 14 July 2011
George Clinton is suing his former lawyers, claiming they failed to pursue two copyright actions that he hired them to undertake, and instead launched a royalties lawsuit against Universal Music which, the Parliament-Funkadelic frontman claims, they bungled and, as a result, he lost.
Clinton is suing Seattle-based Hendricks & Lewis, and one of its partners Oscar Yule Lewis Jr. He says he originally hired the law firm to launch a legal action under America’s Racketeer Influenced & Corrupt Organisations Act in a bid to regain ownership rights to certain Funkadelic master recordings that he says were “misappropriated” by a former manager. Clinton adds that he chose Hendricks & Lewis because they had done similar work for the Jimi Hendrix estate.
But, he alleges, Lewis Jr advised him that as a RICO action would be expensive, he should first pursue legal action against Universal Music which, it was thought, owed the funk man royalties. Monies generated from that action could be used to fund the RICO action.
However, Clinton alleges in his new lawsuit, Lewis messed up the royalties action against Universal, by misinterpreting contracts, failing to name Clinton’s company Thang Inc as a claimant, and failing to deal with issues thrown up by America’s Statute Of Limitations. When the case started to untangle, Clinton says, Lewis tried to bail on the royalties action, basically killing it off.
Meanwhile Clinton was charged $3.5 million in fees relating to the Universal lawsuit, which would have been more than enough to pursue the original RICO action the bandleader had hired Lewis for in the first place. Plus, Clinton’s lawsuit continues, at the same time Lewis failed to pursue a more straight forward copyright action against a label called Charly Records, which were selling certain Funkadelic recordings without permission. Charly Records, Clinton says, was up for negotiating some sort of settlement which would have included a $200,000 advance, but Lewis failed to enter into negotiations.
The Funkadelic chief is seeking over $10 million in damages from the lawsuit. Lewis, for his part, says he has a very different recollection of events. He says his company worked hard for Clinton for three and a half years, and is owed a lot of money for that work, and that it is their attempts to get paid their fees that has led to this malpractice claim.
