Mimi Magnuson

Mimi Magnuson is a seasoned production attorney with over 20 years of legal experience as in-house counsel, all under the Warner Bros. Discovery umbrella, including scripted programming at HBO and WBTV, unscripted reality television for the Bachelor Franchise, and animation work for Hanna-Barbera, WBTV and WBA. Most recently, while at HBO, Mimi served as lead project attorney for various scripted HBO/Max projects (Succession [as co-counsel] and The Penguin) during all phases of development, production and post-production. Mimi reviewed complex chain of title issues in connection with projects in development while drafting, negotiating and finalizing literary purchase agreements; she structured, negotiated, and drafted above-the-line agreements for talent, and she provided practical and consensus-oriented advice on issues relating to guilds, clearance, product usage, insurance, film clips, music, employment matters, marketing, promotion and credit. Additionally, she worked collaboratively with members of other departments including HR investigators, risk management, litigation, corporate compliance, privacy, security and safety teams regarding various matters. Mimi also advised producers on defamation, privacy, and intellectual property matters in connection with reviewing content especially in the context of docudramas, and she ran day-to-day production activities including vetting scripts and rough cuts and resolving the legal issues presented. As the attorney for The Bachelor Franchise, Mimi worked closely with the studio executives, executive producers, and the network to ensure their joint interests were protected by: consistently making changes to contestant agreements based on issues that arose the prior season; vetting contestant backgrounds and meeting with all stakeholders to conduct risk assessment on each candidate; reviewing and evaluating the company’s policies to keep contestants safe; drafting and negotiating contestant agreements, host agreements, trade-out agreements, PSAs, employment service agreements and podcast agreements and handling copyright, music, clearance, BS&P and privacy issues. Mimi also gained extensive experience in animation at WBTV, Warner Bros. Animation and Hanna-Barbera. As a Partner at Edelstein, Laird & Sobel, Mimi represented top tier talent in filmed entertainment, music, merchandising and licensing. Before moving into the entertainment field, she practiced in corporations and securities, M&A, franchise and real estate and gained a solid transactional foundation. Mimi attended University of Colorado School of Law and currently resides in Aspen, Colorado. She is licensed in Colorado and California.