Dewey Partner Lands Jackson Work

Put another feather in the cap of Londell McMillan (Cornell BS ‘87, NYU JD ‘90).

Best known as the “lawyer who freed Prince,” McMillan has landed an even bigger client.

The Dewey & LeBoeuf partner has been engaged by Michael Jackson’s family and is the sole authorized spokesperson for the Jackson family.

More on McMillan’s journey from BigLaw to solo and back after the jump.

It’s been a busy couple of years for McMillan. Earlier this year, McMillan’s side business, NorthStar Business Enterprises, took control of hip hop magazine The Source.

McMillan has only been back with Dewey since 2007, having previously spent 10 years on his own and business was booming. So why return to BigLaw?

“I was turning away too many opportunities I could not service in a small shop,” says McMillan. Though he was courted by several prominent suitors, LeBoeuf made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. “I’m heading up the new global media, entertainment and sports division of an international law firm,” he says in his reflective, soft-spoken cadence. “At this stage of my career, it was necessary for me to corporatize and internationalize my product.”

His clients, he says, couldn’t be more pleased. “They trust my judgment,” he says.

McMillan actually took an interesting path to starting out on his own.

In 1993, when [mentor Richard] Berman left LeBoeuf to pursue a judicial career [he is now a district judge in the Southern District of New York], McMillan left too. He struck a deal with a smaller firm, Gold, Farrell & Marks (which is now part of Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal). In exchange for taking a pay cut and devoting a certain amount of time to litigation, Gold’s core business, McMillan developed a transactional contract business for that firm, and started to build his own practice.

Not a bad deal for him – he got both job security and autonomy.

He worked on high-profile matters. He did research for the suit brought by Billy Joel against various parties that involved charges of fraud, accounting and other fiduciary issues, and he helped the Beatles’ estate company, Apple Corps, in its litigation with record label EMI. “I was cutting my teeth and learning the trade,” says McMillan. “I saw how even superstar artists could have their business not handled properly and need good representation.”

During that time, McMillan also networked and published articles. He represented basketball players Lisa Leslie and Dawn Staley during the 1996 Olympics and lobbied for the NBA to create a women’s league. He brought in his own clients, including rapper Doug E. Fresh, filmmaker Spike Lee and Prince.

And there’s the key: getting his name out. In 1997, he parted ways with Gold, Farrell & Marks and truly went out on his own because the firm didn’t want to commit to a practice outside its core litigation. He didn’t have the capacity to serve his growing clients while meeting his litigation responsibilities to the firm, so it was time to go. Ten years later, capacity was an issue again, when he couldn’t single handedly manage the work he was generating and rejoined what had become Dewey & LeBoeuf.

It remains to be seen what role, if any, McMillan will have in cleaning up the “legacy of litigation” Jackson left behind.

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4. Dewey Takes $400,000 Haircut
5. Patton Boggs Partner Snatches NFLPA Job from “The Wolf”