Players On the Move

Neil Miller has been named General Counsel for Merlin, "the independent's digital music licensing partner." According to a statement by Merlin: "Miller comes to Merlin with deep roots in the music industry and extensive global experience. Most recently, he served as a Partner at international law firm Greenberg Traurig, LLP, where he advised prominent technology, gaming, social media, and digital entertainment companies on all aspects of music rights and licensing. Prior to that, Miller held several high-profile in-house positions, including at Meta, where he led the international music licensing legal team as Director & Associate General Counsel and at SoundCloud where he served as SVP & General Counsel for six years. His career also includes leadership roles at CBS Interactive and Viacom/MTV, among others." … AGBO, the Los Angeles-based independent film studio behind 2023's Best Picture Oscar winner Everything Everywhere All at Once, has hired Amazon's Lesley Freeman as its next legal chief as it beefs up its in-house team. Freeman's career in entertainment spans two decades. Freeman was chief legal officer at MGM where, according to her LinkedIn profile, she led its acquisition of premium pay television network EPIX as well as its purchase of film production companies Evolution Media and Big Fish Entertainment. Freeman was also a key player in MGM's $8.45 billion sale to Amazon in 2022. Freeman joined Amazon in 2023 as vice president of legal and later became senior adviser for global media and entertainment legal. Prior to MGM, Freeman spent almost a decade as senior vice president of legal affairs for HBO, where she led its film programming, home entertainment and strategic investments legal teams. She started her career in law as an entertainment, sports and media lawyer at entertainment law powerhouse O'Melveny & Myers. Freeman replaces Rik Toulon, who left at the beginning of the year to "pursue other interests," a spokesperson for AGBO told Law.com. Joining Freeman is former HBO colleague Michael Bogner, who was previously director of business and legal affairs for scripted series at Netflix, and Ilyssa Adler, who was most recently vice president of business and legal affairs for Ubisoft Film & Television. AGBO also promoted six-year in-house veteran Porscha Lee to manager of business and legal affairs. … Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher partner Katherine Meeks is joining Fox News Media as general counsel, reporting to CEO Suzanne Scott. Meeks, who starts with Fox News Media in August, has been with Gibson Dunn in Washington, D.C., since early 2022, joining from Williams & Connolly, where she was an associate. According to her Gibson Dunn bio, Meeks clerked for Anthony Kennedy while he was a U.S. Supreme Court justice and for Alex Kozinski while he was chief judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. At Gibson Dunn, Meeks practiced constitutional and administrative law, and represented journalists and media outlets in First Amendment cases. Before becoming a lawyer, Meeks was a reporter for the New Orleans Times-Picayune and for The Day in New London, CN. At Fox, Meeks replaces Bernard Gugar, who leaves the New York-based company after serving as general counsel and executive vice president of corporate development for three years. Fox News Media is part of the Murdoch-family-controlled Fox Corp. Gugar, a former Google dealmaker and top lawyer for Oprah Winfrey's Harpo Inc., came aboard in April 2021, weeks after voting machine makers Dominion and Smartmatic filed high-stakes defamation lawsuits against Fox News over its 2020 presidential election coverage. The suits charged that Fox News decimated their businesses by giving oxygen to Donald Trump's false claims of election fraud. Though the network denied wrongdoing, it settled the Dominion suit for $787 million in April 2023. Smartmatic is seeking $2.7 billion in its suit, which is scheduled to go to trial in September 2024. … The Green Bay Packers have promoted Ed Policy, the football team's general counsel for the past dozen years, to CEO, effective with the July 2025 retirement of current CEO Mark Murphy. The GC-to-CEO promotion isn't common in the world of professional sports, but in this case not a surprise. The franchise had signaled its faith in Policy's business and strategy skills by giving him the additional title of chief operating officer in 2018. In addition to serving as CEO, Policy will serve as chairman and president, the NFL franchise announced following a unanimous vote by the team's board of directors supporting the appointment. Under Murphy, who became CEO in 2008, the Packers have been among the NFL's most successful teams. Policy long has been Murphy's top deputy. As general counsel and COO, he oversees legal, communications, marketing, sales, security and hospitality. Before joining the Packers, Policy spent nine years with the Arena Football League, the last two as commissioner and CEO. Earlier, Policy practiced law at Thompson Hine in Cleveland and at Heller Ehrman in San Francisco. … Madison Square Garden Sports has promoted General Counsel Jamaal Lesane to chief operating officer, a move that sees him running business operations and strategy for its flagship sports teams, the New York Knicks and New York Rangers. Lesane has been serving as both general counsel and interim COO since April 3 following the departure of David Hopkinson. Hopkinson separated from MSG Sports on April 1 and received severance, according to a securities filing. A company spokesperson declined to comment on who would be taking on Lesane's general counsel duties, Lesane has been with the MSG family of companies since 2008, starting as team counsel for the Knicks and Rangers, as well as the WNBA's New York Liberty and the NBA D-League's Westchester Knicks. When he arrived, the company was known as Madison Square Garden Co. and included the sports teams as well as the Madison Square Garden venue and other sports and entertainment venues. In 2020, the company split into two publicly traded entities, with the teams going to MSG Sports and the venues going to MSG Entertainment. That same year, Lesane landed a big promotion, becoming associate general counsel for the Knicks, Rangers and MSG's esports. Two years later, MSG Sports elevated Lesane to general counsel. Lesane's CEO role expands his responsibilities to overseeing marketing, ticketing, strategic planning and community and fan development. It also boosts the salary portion of his compensation from $650,000 to $1 million, according to an employment agreement filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Before joining MSG, he was an associate at Covington & Burling for five years and associate counsel of HBO for two years. … Louise Pentland is back at the helm of a legal department after giving up the legal chief post at PayPal during the Great Resignation and then taking a senior role at Disney last September. The TV-streaming pioneer Roku has announced that Pentland joins the San Jose, CA-based company as senior vice president and general counsel. Pentland, who will report to Roku founder and CEO Anthony Wood, succeeds Stephen Kay, who retires after a nearly four-decade legal career. He's been Roku's GC for a decade. Pentland is jumping aboard Roku as cable cord-cutting continues to bulk up its customer base as a soft market for digital ads, its primary source of revenue, is pinching revenue. Pentland spent the largest portion of her career 16 years at Nokia, where she rose to chief legal officer. Last year, Pentland became chief counsel for the Burbank, CA-based Walt Disney Co.'s global parks, experiences and products division. In a statement, Roku's Wood said Pentland's extensive expertise in legal affairs, government relations and corporate governance will be invaluable as we advance our mission to transform how the world watches TV and connect and enhance the entire TV ecosystem." Roku launched in 2002 as part of Netflix, where Wood was a vice president and developed the first streaming device. Six years later, Netflix spun out Roku, which has gone on to become the largest streaming platform in the United States and Mexico and operates in more than 20 countries. The company went public in 2017 and now has a stock market value of $8.7 billion. Roku, which has 3,100 employees, has been sacrificing profitability to build market share. It reported 2023 revenues of $3.5 billion, compared with $3.1 billion a year earlier, and a loss of $798 million, compared with a loss of $498 million a year earlier.