A Columbia Law School graduate and former partner at Frankfurt, Garbus, Klein & Selz, now Franfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz, one of the country's top entertainment and media law firms, Russell Smith has over 23 years of experience in counseling and representing corporate and individual clients. He has handled trials and/or appeals in dozens of federal and state courts across the country, including cases in New York, California, Illinois, Texas, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi and Ohio. More recently, in non-litigation matters, he has been among the legal counsel of choice for the television and film production industries, representing broadcast networks, motion picture studios, and production companies from Hollywood to New York, London, Dublin, and Mumbai.

Dubbed "The Maharaja of Media" by The American Lawyer magazine, Russell has counseled some of the most high-profile companies in the world, including such examples as HBO, Sony Pictures, 20th Century Fox Film Corporation, Pearson, John Wiley & Sons, Reed Elsevier, Coquette Productions (the production company of Courteney Cox Arquette and David Arquette), Miramax Films, MTV Networks, Universal Records, Simon & Schuster, Channel Four Television (UK), American Broadcasting Companies, Def Jam Records, Penguin Books, King World Productions, Warner Books, Matthew Marks Gallery, Inside Edition, American Playhouse, R/GA Digital Studios, Spin Magazine, and the Estates of Elvis Presley, Andy Warhol, and John Cheever.

He also has worked for an unusually diverse range of prominent individuals, such as Sacha Baron Cohen ("Borat"), Philip Glass, Mohamed Al Fayed, John Kerry, Erykah Badu, Graham Norton, Boy George, Chuck D, Don Hewitt, Sean "P. Diddy" Combs, Donald Trump, Spike Lee, Jeffrey Toobin, Terry McMillan, Errol Morris, George C. Wolfe, Sean McPhilemy, Chris Byrne, Dean Koontz, Nelson Demille, Bobby Brown, and Richard Gere.

While at Frankfurt Kurnit in New York, and more recently with SmithDehn LLP, Russell has handled some of the country's most significant litigation matters. He has been production counsel, and among the defense counsel, for claims against "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan." He also has been counsel for "Death of a President," the controversial film about the fictional assassination of President Bush. He planned and helped implement the successful multi-state litigation by the widow and children of author John Cheever, to retain control of Cheever's uncollected stories. He devised and wrote the petition for a writ of mandamus which lifted a broadcast ban affecting over 100 television stations in In re King World, resulting in the federal courts' nationwide adoption of a new device for the overturning of temporary restraining orders against the media. He conceived, and played a major part in executing, the winning strategy of Channel Four Television (UK) and filmmaker Paul Yule in their censorship battle to defend their documentary, "Damned in the U.S.A.," against a lawsuit and injunction filed and obtained by Rev. Donald Wildmon and his American Family Association.

In other fights for free expression, Russell wrote the briefs that allowed the publication of Jeffrey Toobin's critique of the Iran-Contra prosecution under Lawrence Walsh, and he won precedent-setting victories against libel suits brought against best-selling authors Terry McMillan and Nelson Demille. On behalf of Public Enemy rapper Chuck D, he won a seven-figure settlement in a widely watched suit against malt liquor manufacturers and marketers who traded on his client's image.

As pro bono Special Counsel to the Coalition for the Homeless, Russell won a billion-dollar victory for indigent families with children in foster care. Although this victory was overturned on appeal, it ultimately resulted in improvement of the beleaguered foster care system in New York State.

Russell has written numerous legal articles for trade newspapers and law textbooks, and has lectured on several occasions, both at Columbia Law School and in various public forums. He has been interviewed repeatedly on television and radio, and has been quoted countless times by news publications such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, andThe Times of India.

After a one-year sabbatical spent on the northwest coast of Ireland, Russell decided to move permanently from New York City and set a different kind of law firm, originally headquartered in the fishing village of Montauk, on the tip of Long Island. In addition to his desire to live and work in a rural, coastal setting, Russell wanted to work at a firm with a low overhead and an emphasis on representing not only famous names, but also creative and other persons and companies who may have difficulty affording large law firm rates. Begun in 1996 as an unusual experiment, the firm flourished. It attracted an exciting variety of national and international clients, and several outstanding attorneys joined.

The first matter Russell handled after returning to New York was "the Rent case," which he filed to obtain dramaturg Lynn Thomson's fair share of royalties and credit for what the courts recognized was her role in radically transforming the musical play, Rent, from an unproduceable draft into a Pulitzer Prize-winning success. The case resulted in one of the most widely reported trials of 1998, followed by what is probably the most important appellate decision in the last few decades on the subject of joint authorship. In the end, after the courts ruled that Dr. Thomson had made a significant and copyrightable contribution to Rent that might form the basis for an infringement suit, Russell obtained a favorable settlement that addressed all of the issues she had raised.

One high-profile case or matter after another has followed, keeping Russell and the other SmithDehn attorneys busy in several regions of the country and even overseas. Russell enjoys handling "big city" and other interesting legal issues, and helping to manage our global operations, from Mysore, India, with our off-shoring affiliate, SDD Global Solutions Pvt Ltd.