Sistahs in Law

Intellectual property law is often considered the "sexiest" form of law. Learn more about this practice area from this week's guest who is an expert in the field. 

Kamanta  Kettle is a commercial litigator and "Top 40 Under 40" intellectual property lawyer recognized by the National Black Lawyers association. A child of immigrants from Jamaica, West Indies, Kamanta  received her JD from Cornell Law School and Bachelor's Degree, cum laude from New York University. Kamanta  handles complex commercial disputes. Across a broad range of industries, including aeronautics finance and software engineering. In addition, she is a passionate trademark attorney who helps clients in the fashion, retail and beauty industries protect their brand assets. She is currently a Senior Attorney at Arent Fox Schiff. 

Sometimes a passion can be your life's work.  For this week's guest, fashion has always had a unique place in her mission and allowed her to design her own pathway into bridging it with the legal industry. 

Ashley N. Cloud founded The Cloud Law Firm, PLLC to educate and empower creative business owners with the tools and resources to establish and build their empires. 

She comes from a long bloodline of entrepreneurs ranging from the beauty industry to the trucking and food industries. Ashley graduated from Howard University with her law degree and Master's of Business Administration in supply chain management in 2016. While at Howard, Ashley worked to educate the local and broader community on fashion law as co-chair of Fashion Law Week and co-founder and president of the Fashion Law Society. Shortly after graduating from Howard, Ashley served as an Assistant Attorney General in the District of Columbia Office of Consumer Protection. There, Ashley advised local and national businesses on their marketing and advertising practices. 

Ashley's passion for supporting entrepreneurs, led her to serve as an attorney for the U.S. Small Business Administration. The first Black and highest ranked attorney to serve in her office as founder and managing attorney of The Cloud Law Firm PLLC, Ashley has successfully represented fashion and lifestyle brands before the United States Patent and Trademark Office. 

She has also negotiated numerous partnership deals on behalf of her clients. Ashley has also assisted our clients in navigating the complicated process of receiving funding and support from the federal government. Ashley speaks on numerous topics, including business formation and development, intellectual property protection, diversity in fashion, cultural appropriation, supply chain management and resources for creative entrepreneurs. Ashley is licensed to practice law in the state of New York, the District of Columbia, and is awaiting bar admission to her home state of Texas. 

When you first think about immigration law, the creative lives of artists and other innovators may not be the first thing that comes to mind. But for this week’s guest, her mission is to “serve artists and creative professionals by helping them secure artists visas, cement their brands, and monetize their artistry.”

Elektra B. Yao, Esq. is the founder and principal attorney at Yao Law Group law firm dedicated to international and domestic artists.Elektra earned her Bachelor’s Degree in Communication Arts from Marymount Manhattan College in NYC, one of the top art schools in the nation. During her undergraduate university career, Elektra wrote, directed, and produced two documentaries (N*gga What? and The Choking Game) which were screened in Texas and New York City.

Elektra is a very active attorney and is a member of The American Immigration Lawyers Association, Black Entertainment and Sports Lawyer Association, and The New York City Bar Association, where she is a member of several committees.

As a multicultural attorney, with immigrant parents from Italy and Cote D’Ivoire, Elektra is fully fluent in French, Italian, and Spanish. She has lived, studied, and worked internationally in the US, the EU, and Africa. Not only does she understand the language her clients speak, she understands the cultural and artistic landscape of where they come from.

Elektra has successfully represented record labels, modeling agencies, production companies, individual artists, and creatives. Check out more on Elektra at yaolawgroup.com.

Living life out loud and in multiple capacities is not very common in the legal field. However, when you are a mother, strategist, sustainability advocate and attorney, you forge your own pathway.

Whitney McGuire. Esq. is a mother, a New York state licensed attorney, legal and sustainability consultant & strategist, and co-founder of Sustainable Brooklyn, an organization that disrupts the whitewashing of sustainability in order to concretize equity in the sustainability movement. With more than a decade of experience in law and sustainability, she is a pioneer in the field of fashion law and a fierce advocate for the sustainability of communities first and most impacted by environmental and social degradation. In 2013, after graduating law school at the Catholic University of America - Columbus School of Law, Whitney opened her own law firm to support the sustainability of primarily BIPOC artists and fashion designers. Whitney has held positions in fashion lobbying, the U.S. federal judiciary, various fashion-oriented for profit and non-profit companies, and in law firms. In addition to her work as a mother, attorney and sustainability strategist, Whitney is a co-founder of the record label swiMMMers ear with her husband, multi-disciplinary artist, Nelson Nance. Whitney received her undergraduate degree in English and Africana Studies from The George Washington University.

P.S. This is our final episode of the season, so continue to follow us on social media to get updates on when the new episodes for Season 2 will premiere!

Alternatives pathways after law school are not always highlighted to law students or young lawyers. This week’s guest has such an expansive imagination that has led her down an incredible journey through arts and the law.

Clark L. Edmond (she/her/hers) is from Atlanta, GA, and lives between London and New York. After receiving her J.D. from University of Pennsylvania Law School and a Master’s in Art Business from Sotheby’s Institute of Art-London in 2019, she decided to launch __crate with the goal of introducing new audiences to diverse perspectives through art and creating opportunities for historically underrepresented artists. In the past, she has worked at Jack Shainman Gallery in NYC and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. She is co-founder of Black@Sotheby's, the Black student and alumni group at Sotheby's Institute of Art. She is also a member of the New Art Dealers Alliance. In addition to founding __crate, she specializes in the intersection of art, business, intellectual property, and national economic development.

Getting a foot in the door to the entertainment field can be an incredible feat! This week’s guests both have forged a formidable path in and are bringing unique strengths with them.

Maya Day, Esquire is an Associate Attorney at Bruns, Brennan & Berry PC where she serves as production counsel, drafting talent and above-the-line personnel agreements for production companies such as BRON Studios, Jax Media, and A24. Maya has served as counsel for various television series and films, most recently “A Black Lady Sketch Show”, "Pieces of a Woman", “Emily in Paris" and “Desus & Mero.”

Maya holds a B.A from The George Washington University and a J.D. from Howard University School of Law. During her time at Howard Law School, she served as a Student Attorney in the Intellectual Property Clinic with a concentration in trademark law and served as the program coordinator for the Howard Law Sports and Entertainment Law Student Association. She also previously interned at BET Networks, the Federal Communications Commission, and the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities. Maya is an active member of the Black Entertainment & Sports Lawyers Association (BESLA), Young Lawyers Division and Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Incorporated.

Taylor Washington handles a broad range of entertainment transactions for clients in the film and television including production companies, actors/actresses, producers, directors, authors and influencers.

Prior to joining Frankfurt Kurnit, Taylor was a Law Clerk for the NBCU News Group at NBCUniversal Media, LLC., where she served as legal counsel for CNBC prime time programming including “Deal or No Deal”, “The Profit”, and “Jay Leno’s Garage.” She also advised and counseled business teams on other commercial transactions including venue and content licensing agreements. Additionally, Taylor performed pre-broadcast review of long-form programming on CNBC, including “Secret Lives of the Super Rich”, and advised on potential legal issues pertaining to privacy, defamation, libel, and intellectual property.

During law school, Taylor  interned in the Enforcement Bureau at the Federal Communications Commission and in the Business and Legal Affairs department at Scripps Networks Interactive (now Discovery, Inc.), where she worked with counsel to structure and draft production and talent agreements. Prior to law school, Taylor had extensive experience in the entertainment industry including jobs and internships with the Creative Artists Agency (CAA), the Recording Academy, Octagon, and Viacom.

Taylor is a former member of the Hollywood Radio and Television Society Junior Board, and a current member of the New York State Bar Association, and Metropolitan Black Bar Association. She is admitted to practice in New York.

Have you ever wondered what it's like to practice law in Louisiana? Well this week's guest has had pretty robust experiences in her early legal career in the state of Louisiana. ReAzalia Allen (aka Attorney SouthernBelle) is a native of Shreveport, Louisiana.  She is a licensed attorney in the State of Louisiana. She received her Juris Doctor and Graduate Diploma in Comparative Law from The Paul M. Hebert Law Center at Louisiana State University on May 29, 2015.  She was admitted to the practice on October 22, 2015.  More, recently in August of 2017, she received her Masters of Science in Organizational Development from Abilene Christian University in Abilene, Texas. She was the first attorney ever to go through the curriculum for the degree at Abilene Christian University. While she loves everything about the law and the practice of the law, her true passion has always been writing, whether it’s a poem, article, short essay, stage play or screenplay she can do it. She received her Bachelors of Arts in English-Creative Writing from Louisiana State University on May 18, 2012.

She currently manages her own businesses including this blog and her own small firm. She is a three-time published poet and is currently working on several writing projects.

ReAzalia enjoys a plethora of hobbies including baking, traveling, reading, speaking publicly to others, spending time with her Mini Australian Shepherd affectionately called Music, and spending time with her family.  She is a member of  Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated, The Baton Rouge Bar Association, The Louis A. Martinet Legal Society—Baton Rouge Chapter, and the Louisiana State Bar Association.