Jay W. Gendron

As a former executive in business affairs and legal affairs at Warner Bros. and consultant to Showtime and other media companies for more than two decades, Jay Gendron brings an insider's perspective on every facet of television production to the law classroom. His expertise is a tremendous asset for teaching Entertainment Business Affairs Negotiation, the Entertainment Law Capstone and the Entertainment and the Arts Legal Clinic at Southwestern.

Professor Gendron spent more than 20 years at Warner Bros. Television, most recently as Vice President of Business Affairs, where he served as the primary point person for negotiations for writers, producers, directors and actors for the world's largest supplier of primetime scripted television. In this position, he handled all aspects of television business affairs including network license agreements, rights acquisitions and A-Level overall writer/producer agreements. Prior to that, he was Vice President of Legal Affairs, where he oversaw all legal aspects of production, rights acquisitions, co-production agreements, distribution agreements, negotiation/drafting of contracts, and garnered court approval of minors' contracts. He also drafted seminal development, license and termination agreements for The WB network.

Before he joined Warner Bros. in 1991, Professor Gendron was the Director of Legal Affairs at Lorimar Television for several years. There, he served as production counsel, primarily handling network license agreements and clearance matters. Earlier in his career, he was an attorney with the firms of Leopold, Petrich & Smith and McCutchen, Black, Verleger & Shea.

While in law school, Professor Gendron was editor of the Duke Legal Research Program. He also took part in the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals Oral Advocacy Project and served on the Moot Court Board.