This LA lawyer levels up legal protections in the video game industry
Ryan Morrison grew up playing video games. World of Warcraft and Dota 2 were among his favorites, and he still waxes poetic about Final Fantasy 7—the original, not the remake. But he never imagined these virtual adventures would transform into a very real career path as a lawyer representing well- known video game streamers and developers. Today Morrison is known by the moniker, “the Video Game Attorney.” He’s a founding partner of MGL, a boutique firm based in Los Angeles. He also advocates for individual creatives as CEO of Evolved Talent Agency, a digital talent management and marketing agency he founded.
I want to know how you got into this unique practice area, but let’s start at the beginning. How did you decide to go to law school?
If I’m being honest, law school happened pretty randomly. I went to college to become a history teacher, and I’m still super passionate about history, but for a variety of reasons, it didn’t call to my heart. After college, I was working in a bar and doing stand-up comedy.
One of my friends was studying for the LSAT, and a bunch of us started messing with him. We made a bet that we could score higher than him without studying. We showed up, took it, and that’s how I wound up at New York Law School.
That’s amazing. Is law school where you were inspired to blend law and video games?
No. I wanted to get into politics. I grew up super poor, so I wanted to try and help where I could and give back, whatever that looked like. I ended up working for this guy that I thought was the young Bernie Sanders. Unfortunately, his name was Anthony Weiner, and on my first day of work, he showed his genitals on Twitter. Even after he resigned, I worked for the district the entire summer. It gave me a distaste for politics, and I decided to find some- thing else to do. But it was deep enough into law school that everybody had already signed up for their next sum- mer clerkship, and I started to panic. I was friendly enough with a professor who taught intellectual property, and he also was a lawyer for a bunch of entertainment companies. One of them was a small video game company, and the professor wound up getting me a job there. It was fun, and it was a great learning experience. I got to really understand the space, and one of the things I learned was that the video game industry is run by people who hate law- yers. They’re afraid to call their lawyer because they know they’re going get an invoice. They’re also uncomfortable around people in suits and ties. The legal industry never figured out a way to talk to them or to not scare them out of taking things seriously or doing things the right way. When I graduated from law school, I was fortunate to get a job at a small trademark firm. Around the time I started, there was a controversy going on in the game space involving Candy Crush Saga that was being heavily discussed on Reddit. Candy Crush Saga was made by a studio called King. It had trademarked the words “candy” and “saga” and was going after every little mom-and-pop studio that had those words in their titles. I knew that King’s arguments were weak, so I went on Reddit and basically said to these small studios, ‘Listen, I’ve been a lawyer for eight days, but I’ll help you for free if you want to fight against this.’
And your firm was OK with that?
I did ask my boss if it would be OK if I did that. He said no, so I quit my job and went home and did it.
That was such a huge gamble.
I’ve had a lot of dice rolls in my life, but that was the big one. I really believe that the game developer community was hungry for someone to explain this stuff to them, because my post blew up. I ended up representing some of the developers, and we got the Candy Crush team to pull back their trade marks. Reddit started calling me ‘the Video Game Attorney.’ That turned into me helping a ton of video game developers, and then video game developers turned into video game players on YouTube and Twitch, and that turned into esports players, which turned into, you know, fill in the blank. Now we’re very fortunate to do a ton of work throughout all of digital entertainment. I very quickly found people smarter and more experienced than me, and I started building the firm around me that way.
Going viral on Reddit when you did—around 2013 through 2014— really helped to set you up for your current success. Do you think it’s still possible for young lawyers to leverage social media to jump-start their careers?
It depends. I think what social media is now versus when I was doing it is very different. Twitter doesn’t exist anymore, and Reddit’s become a different place. The internet’s just more flooded with 28 nonsense; it’s a harder place to have an actual conversation. Also, for me it was never about getting followers. I was a member of a community that was angry at what Candy Crush was doing, and I was like, “Let me help this community figure this out.” It was never about following me on all socials or checking out my stream on Tuesday night or whatever else. Most young attorneys who start to see success on social media try to become influencers—they become focused on building a social media career. I have yet to see anyone use their social media success to build a law firm.
Does your firm have a presence on Instagram or TikTok?
No. For us, it’s not the best way to at- tract the kind of client we’re going after or the best way to educate people who are trying to build things.
Would you advise lawyers to stay away from social media promotion?
I’d say that there’s room on social media for good legal advice, but there are a lot of bad actors, and it’s a very flooded space. It’s not about just throw- ing up posts—it’s about consistency and quality, and it’s not easy to make it work. But I’m against telling people who want to start their own firm that they shouldn’t do something. Anyone who gets dissuaded by hearing they shouldn’t do something will fail any- way. Every single person in my life told me I shouldn’t do what I did, and I still did it. For someone who’s trying to start their own firm, build out their practice at a firm or really stand out in a space, they need to find something that not everyone is doing. I think that is what it takes to succeed. There is a medium for you with eyeballs and followers, you just need to find a community of people who are building things and need legal advice.
Do you represent any clients you could name-check that readers might know?
We represent one of the biggest streamers in the world, a guy named xQc. Last year, I found and negotiated a deal for him to get $100 million just to livestream himself playing video games on a website. We also repre- sent a lot of the top esports players.
We work with developers who make games for your phones and some of the top Roblox developers. We’re also starting to do more straight-up en- tertainment law for clients who have nothing to do with gaming, they’re just looking for a firm that’s more flexible.
What do you mean by flexible? Like different types of billing arrangements?
Yes. We’ve always been flexible like that. Going back to the first day, the reason all these indie developers reached out to me was that I was willing to work for little to no money. When I first launched the firm, I was offering a subscription model—$99 a month for unlimited phone calls and emails to ask legal questions or any- thing else. I always tell people, if you’re being taken advantage of, or you’re in a bad situation and you can’t afford a lawyer, you can still afford us. We work with plenty of people on revenue shares, on discount or deferred payment mod- els. We also don’t charge for phone calls or emails so that our clients can have a more open flow of communication with their attorney.
You’ve grown from a solo practice to a roster of 12 lawyers.
It is working. But, you know, I could have a nicer car! We get clients from BigLaw every day that are frustrated with the billing practices there or just the inflexibility of being able to jump or pivot on certain matters. We try to stay lean while expanding. We have 12 attorneys, but we also have a very large team of brand enforcement specialists and administrative staff that all make it tick, make it cook. We have our foot on the gas for sure. We want to be at the forefront of any medium that people are absorbing. ■
Jenny B. Davis is a journalism professor at Southern Methodist University, a fashion stylist and former practicing attorney. Her most recent book is Style Wise, a guide for aspiring fashion stylists.
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