Mr. Rocco Cozza, is a seasoned legal professional with nearly two decades of experience specializing in entertainment and business law.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of: Cozza Law Group
In a recent exchange, Mr. Rocco Cozza spoke to Haute Media Group editor Esly Davis for the latest edition of the Haute Lawyer Webinar series. In this engaging conversation, Mr. Cozza shared his unique career journey, touching upon the convergence of business and entertainment law and how social media, streaming platforms, and AI are reshaping the entertainment legal landscape. He emphasized the power of social media for client engagement, detailing his success in using it to foster trust and build relationships. Additionally, Mr. Cozza discussed his impactful TED Talk, focusing on the significance of kindness in the world of business, leaving a lasting impression on the audience. Overall, the interview provided profound insights into Mr. Cozza’s legal career and the evolving dynamics of entertainment and business law in today’s digital era.
Esly Davis: Working in entertainment and business law, would you say that these two areas intersect more than the average person would think so? If so, how?
Rocco Cozza: Yeah, absolutely. So, I think a lot of people have this misunderstanding of what entertainment law is. It really is just business law within the entertainment industry. And I fell into that practice. So, I’m in the Pittsburgh area, that’s where I’m primarily based. We don’t have a lot of entertainment law firms here. A couple of my friends and close colleagues were in the sports and entertainment world, former agents, producers. They were connecting me with all of these former athletes and up-and-coming talent. I started working with them just on the business side of things. And then that’s kind of how we grew the entertainment law practice. Over time, I’ve gravitated more from working with talent to now working with the companies, like the production companies, the movie companies, the record labels. It’s just a different type of advice and I tend to like to play on that side of the thing as more so than the talent. I do have a couple of individuals I work with on the talent side, but the majority of our entertainment law practice is with the companies. And it really is, I mean, it’s just business law within the industry. Entertainment law has some nuances to it, understanding how the contracts work, how payments and royalties work, but it’s really just business law. There is a true intersection of the two.
Esly Davis: I want to circle back really quick to social media. We can’t bypass this. It seems like you have amazed Instagram with a large following of almost 300,000 followers. How do you use social media to your advantage in the law industry?
Rocco Cozza: So I’ve used social media, I think, in a really interesting way, which has helped us, I’ll give you an example. In the past three weeks, I’ve gotten five new clients from Instagram. And what I do on there, so it’s not, I don’t just talk about the law. I talk about the law very sparingly on Instagram. It’s more about sharing my thoughts as an entrepreneur, motivation, my family life, my personal life, because at the end of the day, when someone selects to work with me or my law firm, they’re picking me, like the person. So they need to know who I am, my personality. So most lawyers are afraid to put themselves out there. I’m just always taking the opposite approach. I say, well, look, I know when I pick a service provider, I want to like and trust the person. I have to know them. I have to almost date them just to kind of understand who they are. Instagram, I’ve used, and even TikTok, and LinkedIn, and Facebook, but mostly Instagram’s my biggest following is I really use that to give people an insight of view into who I am. And so then they can choose to work with me.
Watch the video below to enjoy the entire conversation:
