Mr. Swanlund's practice is concentrated in the areas of arts and entertainment, and real estate transactions.

Arts and Entertainment

Matthew Swanlund negotiates and drafts intellectual property, business and related agreements on behalf of visual, performing and literary artists, designers, photographers, actors, screenwriters, playwrights, authors, television producers, music producers, directors, animators, individual musicians and bands, independent record labels, visual arts organizations, art galleries, art museums, clothing designers, and other artistic, entertainment and media creative talent. He counsels artists and entertainment talent on entertainment and copyright matters, and negotiates and drafts associated "above the line" entertainment and copyright agreements.

He currently is serving as an Arts Commissioner on the City of Santa Monica Arts Commission. He has also been a guest lecturer at the UCLA School of Art and Architecture where he lectured on legal issues for artists in the 21st Century.

He has served as a featured panelist at a Beverly Hills Bar Association Committee for the Arts event at Sotheby's speaking about artist/gallery agreements. He is a frequent lecturer on legal issues for visual artists, as well as actively involved as a pro bono panel attorney, for California Lawyers for the Arts. He is on the board of directors of the arts organization Create:Fixate, and a judge for the Pepperdine National Entertainment Law Moot Court Competition each year. He is also an associate member of an international association of writers known as PEN Center USA.

He has represented patrons of the arts in the commission and purchase of large scale sculptures by Richard Serra and David Cerny. He has represented participants on reality television shows such as America's Next Top Model, VH1's Rock Bodies, and My Big Fat Obnoxious Boss. He has also represented musicians and bands whose music was used in the HBO series Tourgasm. He is passionately involved in the Southern California arts and entertainment community, and works equally as passionately to protect his arts and entertainment clients.

Real Estate

Mr. Swanlund negotiates and drafts a broad range of real estate transactional documents, including purchase and sale agreements, telecommunications land leases, office and commercial leases, easements, restrictive agreements, bills of sale, promissory notes, subordination agreements and leases for Native American Reservation land. He also counsels developers and individuals and negotiates and drafts purchase and sale and use agreements on their behalf regarding intellectual property aspects of real estate.