Randy Erlewine has been selected as a Super Lawyer in the 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008 lists of Northern California Super Lawyers, an honor given to the top 5% of attorneys practicing in Northern California.  Click here.

David Given recently co-chaired the Microsoft-sponsored Entertainment Technology Law Summit in Seattle on entertainment and technology issues and moderated the ABA’s Annual Meeting Presidential Showcase Program, entitled “Privacy, Copyright and Parental Control in the Age of YouTube, MySpace and Beyond.”

On January 1, 2008, Nicholas Carlin joined Phillips, Erlewine & Given LLP as a partner. Nick was recently a panelist at the Microsoft-sponsored Entertainment Technology Summit in Seattle on entertainment and technology issues.

In 2007, Randy Erlewine successfully defended the California State Bar, its president and general counsel in a civil rights action filed by an attorney alleging that his State Bar discipline had been misrepresented on the State Bar website. Click here to view the published Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision affirming the dismissal.

In 2007, the Firm represented members of the band THE RUBINOOS in a copyright infringement action against the musical artist AVRIL LAVIGNE, alleging that her #1 hit song “Girlfriend” plagiarizes key portions of clients’ copyrighted song “I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend.” The case received wide media attention, both in the U.S. and in Canada. It also engendered dozens of YouTube videos independently created by fans of both sides comparing the two songs, which became the most-viewed videos on YouTube for several weeks, and popular sites such as AOL and TMZ ran internet polls asking users whether they thought the song had been plagiarized.