Texas Bar Journal • May 2025
SXSW 2025
The intersection of law and technology.
Written by Geoffrey Hinkson and Eric Quitugua
South by Southwest, the annual music, film, and technology conference that takes over Austin each year, featured panels on March 7-15 that provided updates on the law, offered continuing education for attorneys, and explored legal trends. Highlights from some of the law-related sessions follow.
LEADERSHIP IN THE PRACTICE OF LAW
The State Bar of Texas president-elect candidates—Deborah L. Cordova and
G. David Smith—and the Texas Young Lawyers Association president-elect
candidates—Ashton Barrineau Butcher and Armin Salek—took the SXSW stage
for a free- flowing discussion on innovation and leadership in the
practice of law in a session titled “Guiding the Gavel: Evolving
Legal Leadership.” Candidates delved into an array of topics,
including why the legal practice lags behind business when it comes
to adapting new technology, access to justice, and artificial
intelligence (AI) in the practice of law. Afterward, the panelists
answered questions from the audience, which mostly consisted of Texas
lawyers and out-of-state lawyers. One audience member was interested in
hearing about private firms cutting head
count with the increased use of AI and asked, “Are there any
stats on the hiring rates for private practice only two to three
years into ChatGPT and AI becoming a real player in how this field is
shaped?” Cordova responded, “I just spoke to St.
Mary’s law students last week. I spoke with the dean as well, and
she was very excited to share that a lot of the law students, if not
everybody that went through the interview process, received
an offer. So even with AI, law students are getting hired. And
it’s like David mentioned. Law firms are growing. Practices are
growing.”
THE FUTURE OF NIL FOR COLLEGE ATHLETES
In a panel titled “NIL in College Athletics: Legal &
Regulatory Trends,” University of Texas Longhorns safety Michael
Taaffe; DeMaurice Smith, former executive director of the NFL Players
Association (2009-2023); and Lawrence Waks, of Reed Smith; speculated
on what name, image, and likeness (NIL) deals and regulation will look
like a decade from now. The panelists described the current era of
NIL, where there’s a “system where there is no
system,” according to moderator Shawn Abboud. Currently,
athletes can negotiate deals through a private, third- party stream of
revenue that is virtually unlimited. This involves sponsorships by
anyone wanting to partner up with an athlete. This can range from
retailer brands to restaurant chains to, in the case of Taaffe,
Lamborghini Austin. This is great not only from a revenue standpoint
but an equity standpoint as well, said Waks, whose clients employ his
services to help navigate starting companies. Smith later expanded on
the current landscape, referencing a trio of NIL lawsuits in 2016
against the NCAA, “The only reason we are here in this current
system is the NCAA realized after all of these losses that they were
looking at, conservatively, $20 billion in a judgment against the
NCAA. … All of these people in some way, shape, or form, are going to
be facing this same existential threat. That’s how things get
done.” On the horizon, the panelists opined: (1) Collusion among
athletes: “You and the five [defensive backs] can get together and
you say, ‘none of us are going to sign a contract unless
there’s
a minimum of $10 million.’ … It’s illegal for the owners to
collude … but it’s perfectly legal for the workers to,”
Smith said;
(2) Even more of a focus on third-party transactions: “I think
there will always be a function of payments to athletes,” Waks
said; (3) More litigation surrounding Title IX issues for male and
female athletes; and, among others, (4) A model for deals and
regulation that mirrors the professional model.
INDIE FILMS, AI, FAIR USE, AND MORE
Michael Donaldson, Chris Perez, and Dale Nelson—partners at
entertainment law firm Donaldson Callif Perez in Los Angeles— led a
Q&A discussion titled “The Indie Film Annual Legal Update:
AI, Fair Use, and More” that focused on three areas: the
evolution of AI in the last year, key fair use cases from 2024, and
legal issues surrounding making films based on or inspired by true
stories. An overarching theme of the discussion was uncertainty. Without
recent legal precedent to give clear answers surrounding AI in
filmmaking, the attorneys at points looked to past copyright cases that
may offer some clues on how copyright issues may be handled going
forward. Nelson referenced Thomson Reuters v. Ross. In this
2020 case, Thomson Reuters alleged AI and legal research firm Ross
Intelligence unlawfully copied its Westlaw headnotes for training data.
Ross claimed fair use; the court said otherwise since Ross is a system
competing with the system that owns the data. Nelson also referenced
Authors Guild v. Google, which involved Google digitizing books
for its Google Books database. The Authors Guild sued for copyright
infringement. But the court decided the ingestion
of books was fair use since Google Books is not a tool to read books
entirely and Google does not directly commercialize the copyrighted
works, among other reasons. Elsewhere during the panel, the attorneys
divulged on their own precautions for clients who increasingly use AI
in their filmmaking. For example, they advise their clients to include
in their copyright registration applications where AI is used and what
elements are generated by cast and crew. “I think for insurance
purposes, it’s also something you’re going to want to
advise the insurance company about so they’re aware of it,”
Perez said. “What program did you use? Was it using everything on
the internet or is it something like Adobe that has a more closed
system and makes reps and warranties about what they’re actually
using?”
BATTLE OF THE MINDS
Sarah Mae Jennings, deputy executive director of the Texas Access to
Justice Commission and assistant director of the State Bar of Texas
Legal Access Department, and Cristina I. Ramirez, adjunct professor at
the University of Texas School of Law, led a session titled
“Law and Lore: A Trivia Contest for Legal Minds.” Lawyers
and law students were invited to display their legal expertise on
landmark cases, statutes, and legal history by answering trivia
questions. “In what landmark case did the U.S. Supreme Court rule
that a court cannot revoke a defendant’s probation for failure
to pay a fine or restitution?” The answer to that question was
Bearden v. Georgia. The contest started with lawyers going up
against law students and eventually turned into everyone against each
other. The setting proved lively, with lawyers talking to each other.
But once a new question was asked, the room would turn silent as
everyone stopped to think and write down their answer.
HUMANIZING THE CLIENT
“In the world of TV, often it’s some intricate plot and
groups of investigators go through and use all sorts of high-tech
technology to find out and come down to ‘is this the person who
did it?,’” Russell Barnett said. “Most of the time,
it’s never a whodunit. It’s a whydunit.” A session
titled “Representing a Client Charged With Murder—It’s Not
Like TV” introduced the audience to a Portland, Oregon, team
composed of criminal defense lawyer Barnett, mitigation expert Carin
Connell, forensic psychologist Megan McNeal, and case manager and
paralegal Erika Henao. Far from the sensationalism and exploitation of
crime shows and podcasts, representing a client charged with murder
involves humanizing people and building rapport and trust with them,
panelists said. Connell first builds an extensive record collection.
This involves the client’s child welfare records, where they went
to school, injury history, etc. This gets put into a timeline where
the team can see when traumatizing events occurred and behavioral
changes began. This informs McNeal, who can use a client’s records
to substantiate things like a client’s claim of having mental
health or substance use issues. This in turn helps Barnett negotiate a
sentence less than life by humanizing the client. In Oregon, a murder
conviction carries a minimum mandatory sentence of life imprisonment.
Anything less than that, which allows the client to one day walk free,
is a win, they said. “During our investigation and our time with
[clients] … they’re able to see that they’re not
necessarily a bad person, ”
Connell said. “They’ve made bad choices. But people are
more than the worst thing they’ve done. We’re trying to
humanize who this person is and why they act the way they do.”
INTERACTIVE ART AND ITS COPYRIGHT ISSUES
Ben Allison, a managing partner in Bardacke Allison Miller in Sante
Fe, New Mexico, and Breanna Contreras, vice president of legal at Meow
Wolf in Sante Fe, delved into the complexities of copyright for
interactive art experiences in the session titled “Will Immersive
Art Break Copyright?” The pair explained various topics within
copyright, such as disclosing the use of artificial intelligence in
artwork when filling out a copyright application, how someone cannot
enforce a copyright in court without first registering the copyright
with the U.S. Copyright Office, and the issues arising when the
copyright registration application is knowingly wrong. Allison
explained what can happen during a lawsuit when there is a known
misstatement on the application. Citing a case he worked on for a client
who got sued for copyright infringement of a work of visual art, he
said, “When a copyright defendant, someone who has been sued,
persuades the court during litigation that there was a knowing
misstatement in the application, there’s an interesting process
that can begin. The court can refer that copyright registration back to
the register of copyrights in Washington, D.C., for a formal opinion
during this case. If the register of copyrights had known the truth as
opposed to what she was told in the application, would she have issued
that copyright registration?” While Allison did not provide
details on how this specific case ended, he further explained what
could happen in these instances. “So, it goes back to the U.S.
Copyright Office where they reexamine that issue and decide that
question. If the register of copyrights says, ‘No, I would not
have registered that copyright had I been told the truth in the
application,’ then she writes that opinion and sends it back to
the federal court in whatever part of the country that case is brought,
and then the judge in the case can decide at that point there’s a
fork in the road. Can the copyright registration be corrected or should
the copyright registration be invalidated? And if the copyright
registration is invalidated, that can end the whole case.”
THE SAN ANTONIO SPURS’ LEGAL X’S AND O’S
A panel titled “Courtside Counsel: Behind the Spurs Legal
Playbook” provided an overview of the legal innerworkings of one
of professional sports’ most successful franchises. Sameer
Bhuchar, Anward Chagollan Sanchez, and Aanand Mehta are part of a
cadre of attorneys, under the direction of chief legal officer Bobby
Perez, who help the San Antonio Spurs with corporate partnerships;
vendor contracts for arena operations; employee relations matters; real
estate, construction, and development contracts; work authorizations
for international players; and personal injury issues at the
organization’s venues, among other legal areas. The majority of
the work is handled in-house, and no two days are alike, the panelists
said. For the Spurs legal team, approaches to things like copyright
infringements can be a matter of local policing or even employing the
use of AI vendors to scan online images for counterfeit Spurs jerseys
made and sold abroad. But if there’s an opportunity to partner
with a creator who’s made bootleg Spurs apparel, the legal team
may even scrap a cease-and-desist letter if a collaboration could work
out for both sides. With a wide range of legal areas to cover, the
legal team’s primary client is the overall health and well-being
of the organization. “To that end, we have a thousand
clients,” Bhuchar said.
