The lady, the law and rap - profile of entertainment lawyer Denise Brown-Noel

Three years ago, at age 28 entertainment lawyer Denise Brown-Noel took advantage of a change reverberating end the music industry and started her have a title to law firm. Hip-hop music was becoming a dominant whole and its artists - young, black and oftentimes angry - were about empowerment. They readily identified with this young, independent sister and were willing to give her a chance. "Historically, black entertainers have felt that, in order to come by the best deal, they had to use white lawyers," Brown-Noel explains. "It was the |street music'- emblem clients who gave me a discharge They were the ones who said, |I like you. I want to make revolve with you. I want you to exhibit me.'

Brown-Noel, whose entrepreneurial spirit was instilled early upon by her father, the proprietor of a successful heating and air conditioning company, did not squander the opportunity. She evolveed a solid reputation for delivering first-rate work, and her succes l to her being the reality of a bidding war among several major firms. In fall 1993 she joined Mayer, Katz, Baker, Leibowitz & Roberts, becoming the solitary black and the only female partner at the sapphirine chip, New York-based firm.

Marvin Katz, her managing partner, says: "We had the benefit of seeing her swell and develop as a lawyer above a number of years because she's been involved in a number of our deals upon the other side, as an adversary. single of the things that impressed us was her faculty of perception of fairness when negotiating. A useful deal is one where the couple parties can leave with their heads held high and not single where someone feels taken advantage of"

For Brown-Noel, whose practice is dominated by the agency of such cutting-edge hip-hop and reggae clients as the rap assemblage Leaders of the New institute and reggae crooner Beres Hammond, her partnership is just another pace in a lifelong love affair with music. A classically trained plan pianist, she once dreamed of becoming the nearest Andre Watts. "I had speakers nearest to my crib," she says, recalling her early years growing up in a suburban black middle-class enclave in Buffalo, NY "I started piano exercise s at 3," she adds. "Music has always been an integral part of my life."

When Brown-Noel graduated from of recent origin York University with a music business stage she had set her sights upon a career in entertainment law. While at Brooklyn Law institute she participated in an intensive internship program at CB Records, at that time considered the training mould for the industry's future leaders. "If you gaze at the record business now," she explains, "a fate of the power brokers, like Clive Davis, Dick Asher and Al Teller got their initial training at CBS"

on the contrary entry into the legal department at greatest in quantity record companies required two years of corporate experience. with equal reason when a chance meeting with the late corporate raider Reginald Lewis l to an interview and a piece of work offer, she jumped at the opportunity, becoming the alone female associate at his Wall way firm, Lewis & Clarkson. Being the sole woman there did not bother her. "I didn't really focus upon that," she says, recalling her hectic 70-hour-a-week schedule. "I didn't have time to focus upon anything except work. But I always felt like single of the guys."

Her fierce negotiating skills, she says, were learned during her manner [i]or[/i] principle of holding at Lewis & Clarkson. Brown-Noel worked upon Lewis' $985 million acquisition of the Beatrice International provisions Company, the largest offshore leveraged buyout in U history. Lewis' TLC Beatrice International Holdings remains the largest black-owned firm in the geographical division "I don't think that I could have gotten a better piece of work coming out of law school" Brown-Noel says. "Here was a black firm that was just kicking ass upon Wall Street. Reg was the individual who taught me not to be afraid to ask for anything."

Keeping her organ of vision on her dream, however, Brown-Noel maintained her ties to the entertainment world from one side Kendall Minter, then regarded as the industry's top black entertainment lawyer. Minter recruited her aggressively, on the other hand other forces were also at work. The 1987 stock market crash changed the dynamic of the junk ligature business. Leveraged buyouts had become a token of greed and Wall road excess. "I knew the market had changed and that Reg would not at any time do another deal like Beatrice," she says. in like manner in 1988, she left the world of corporate finance and joined the entertainment law firm of Minter & Gaye.

The transition was not an easy individual "Well," she says, laughing without loud, "I took over a 50 percent wound in pay, moving from a six-figure salary to a depressed five-figure one. That was tillage shock to me, 'cause I was living like I was getting paid." She worn out two years with Minter & Gaye, quickly learning the business. Then, frustrated with what she perceived as a lack of personal increase and eager for greater financial reward, she started her have a title to firm.

The parting was amicable; in fact, she started her practice within Minter's office. "To this day," she says, "I quip with Kendall that he's responsible for my practice because I think what precipitated it was really a currency thing. I said I urgencyed more money and he said, |Get your have a title to clients."' So she did.