Page 366 - WhyAsInY

Why (as in yaverbaum)
was interesting. Sometimes the lawyers who were involved were. Some- times the case reminds me of something that was important to me at the time. Sometimes, maybe often, describing the matter affords me the opportunity to communicate something about the life of a young asso- ciate in those days. And sometimes the matter had a direct bearing on my career.
The litigation matters that remain with me (which for the most part will be referred to by a case name that I recall, or some reasonable fac- simile thereof) are the following:
• Milton T. Okun Productions v. Tuna Fish Records. I did research for and a small amount of work on an appellate brief with Ambrose Doskow in this case, which involved CBS’s quest to free Laura Nyro from recording, performance, and publishing contracts that she had entered into as a minor. (She wrote “Stoned Soul Picnic,” “Califor- nia Shoeshine Boys,” “Sweet Blindness,” “Wedding Bell Blues,” “And When I Die,” and “Blowing Away,” among other songs, cut her own albums, and was the primary composer for The 5th Dimension, a very popular group in the late sixties and early seventies.) The case settled after Ambrose argued it in the Appellate Division. The key moment for me, other than when I witnessed Ambrose actually dic- tate whole sections of the brief (virtually without subsequent revision), occurred when I spoke to Laura Nyro on the day that Janis Joplin (whose music I love) died from an overdose of heroin, and she told me how “bummed” she was when she learned about “Janis’s” death, which was quite a loss. (For those of you in later gen- erations, I hope that I don’t have to tell you this, but some of Janis’s greatest hits include “Me and Bobby McGee,” “Piece of My Heart,” “Mercedes Benz,” “Summertime,” “Cry Baby,” and “Down on Me.”) When I was living alone and the children would visit, Janis was a regular on my stereo.
• In re Mark Rothko. On February 25, 1970, Mark Rothko, the famous and prolific abstract expressionist whose painting Orange, Red, Yellow
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