Kevin J. Greene

Professor Kevin “K.J.” Greene is a graduate of the Yale Law School and a U.S Marine Corps veteran.

Professor Greene serves as the John J. Schumacher Chair Professor at Southwestern Law School in Los Angeles, California, where he teaches Copyright Law and Entertainment Law.  Professor Greene also teaches International Entertainment Law in Southwestern Law School’s London program at University of London.

Professor Greene’s extensive, award-winning scholarship explores copyright, trademark, and publicity rights issues. His work pioneered an entirely new field of study in legal academy around issues of racial inequality in intellectual property (“IP”).

The academy, the Bar and the media recognize Professor Greene as the leading authority in this field. In 2016, the State Bar of California’s Intellectual Property Institute selected Greene for its highest honor, the Vanguard Award, in recognition of his innovative scholarship in the category of Academics.

After admission to the New York Bar, Professor Greene practiced law in New York at the premier firm of Cravath, Swaine & Moore, representing companies such as Time Warner/HBO.

He also practiced at the New York entertainment law firm of Frankfurt, Kurnit, Klein & Selz, where his clients included film production companies, film director Spike Lee, and music artists including Harry Connick, Jr., Bobby Brown, and the seminal rap group Public Enemy.

Professor Greene has been an invited speaker at leading academic and professional organizations, including the American Bar Association (“ABA”), the International Trademark Association (“INTA”), the Beverly Hills Bar Association, The Association of American Law Schools (“AALS”), the California Copyright Conference, the South-by Southwest Conference, and at Yale, Harvard, Duke, N.Y.U., Notre Dame, U.S.C., Georgetown, U.C.L.A., University of Washington, U.C. Berkeley and Columbia law schools, among others

Professor Greene has served as an expert witness-consultant in copyright, trademark, trade secret and right of publicity cases, and entertainment industry contract matters.

Greene was a consulting expert for funk music legend George Clinton in a landmark copyright case in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

He has also served as an expert for the Burbank Choir in a novel case involving copyright grand performance rights.  

Greene also served as a testifying IP expert in a landmark $9.5 million jury trial on contracts and right of publicity case.

In 2021, he served as a copyright and entertainment industry expert for film financier and producer Village Roadshow in a case against Warner Brothers Pictures.

In 2021, Professor Greene was selected by the California Commission on Reparations to testify as an expert on the issue of reparations for African American Music.

In 2020, Greene co-produced and appeared on the Netflix show “Explained” on copyright issues and social media dance crazes.

Currently, Professor Greene is part of the production team for a landmark BBC documentary on reparations for African American music artists that is executive produced by Edris Elba.

 Reporters have quoted or cited Professor Greene in many outlets, including The Washington Post, the Associated Press, U.S.A Today, Wired Magazine, Law360, NPR, the Hollywood Reporter, the Daily Beast, Business Insider, Fortune Magazine, and others.

In 2022, Rolling Stone Magazine did a feature article on Greene’s longstanding work around social justice and copyright law.