Jonathan Handel is a transactional enter­tainment and technology lawyer with a related specialty in Hollywood unions and guilds, and is also a journalist, media commentator and occasional screenwriter and poet. He represents screenwriters, directors, actors, producers, production companies and others in transactions and in guild relations. Jonathan also represents software developers and counterparties, and companies and executives negotiating employment agreements.

A preeminent expert on Hollywood unions and guilds, Jonathan regularly handles residuals matters and other guild issues, including credit arbitrations and appeals. The author of four books and numerous articles on the entertainment unions, Jonathan was associate counsel at the WGA and outside special counsel to SAG-AFTRA. An authority on residuals, Jonathan created a color-coded chart summarizing most residuals that has become an industry standard, and then expanded the chart into the only published book on residuals.

Jonathan is also a Contributing Writer for Puck news and was a contributing editor at The Hollywood Reporter from 2010 to 2020, where he wrote about 1,400 articles. His writing has also been published in/on the Los Angeles Times, Variety, Billboard, Backstage and elsewhere. He has appeared almost 1,400 times as a commentator on entertainment law and business in most major television, radio, print and online outlets across the world.

Jonathan moderates and appears on panels, presents seminars and has taught a 400-student film appreciation/screening class for UCLA Extension. He has been an adjunct professor at UCLA, USC and Southwestern law schools teaching courses on the entertainment industry and on Hollywood unions and guilds, and is a non-resident research fellow at Rutgers University. He is also a co-founder and former officer of an entertainment tech startup. Named by the Daily Journal as one of the top 100 lawyers in California, Jonathan has been profiled in a book, articles, websites and podcasts. He is a member of the Television Academy and an associate member of the Dramatists Guild and the Society of Composers & Lyricists.

Jonathan is licensed in California and is a graduate of Harvard College (1982/83 AB magna cum laude in applied math and computer science) and Harvard Law School (1990 JD cum laude). Prior to law school, he worked in tech and was a Democratic party elected official and gay activist who initiated, drafted and successfully lobbied for the Cambridge, Mass. human rights (civil rights) ordinance. Afterwards, Jonathan was a federal appellate law clerk, litigator and federal Associate Independent Counsel (special prosecutor) before switching to transactional practice.