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Julianna Margulies’ former management company sued The Good Wife actress today over fees it says she owes in commissions. D/F Management claims Margulies owes them $420,000. As outlined in the complaint (read it here) filed today in LA Superior Court, the money comes from fees D/F say are owed from her Emmy-winning gig on the CBS show as well as a spokesperson contract with L’Oreal. The management company, who based its sum on a 10% commission fee, also wants the court to ensure that Margulies continues to pay them from all fees and contingent compensation from the show and the cosmetics contract in the future.
D/F signed the former ER star in February 2009. The Good Wife, in which Margulies plays lead character Alicia Florrick, debuted September 22, 2009. Margulies ended her relationship with D/F Management in late April 2011. In the filing, D/F, which was founded by Margulies’ former ICM agent Steve Dontanville and talent manager Frank Frattaroli, provide edited emails about how pleased the actress says she was with the way they handled her career. The suit also contains quotes from Margulies about wanting to cut costs.
Under standards and practices of client contracts, agencies and managers are entitled to continue to receive commissions on work they have procured for a client, even after the client has left them. Consequently, such suits as the one filed against Margulies are not uncommon in Hollywood. In April, ICM filed a civil complaint against Jersey Shore’s Pauly D for the salary raises the agency negotiated for the reality star when he was a client. D/F is also seeking costs, interest on the amount owed and “such relief as the Court deems just and proper.” D/F, which is asking for a four-day jury trial to settle the matter, is represented by Matthew Rosengart of LA firm Greenberg Traurig.
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She should have had Untitled manage her. She would have owed them a lot less money or even nothing on the same deal. What manager would charge 10% commission these days??!!!
Umm, most.
Ummmm, all !!!
Most managers do charge 10% these days. It used to be 15%. If the manager does his job right for you — it’s the best investment you’ll ever make. I am not a manager or agent. I am a writer.
Please elaborate. Dontanville repped her then, gets paid now, that’s the deal. Her husband is to blame no doubt or debt she incurred when she left 20+ on the table after ER.
Actually Untitled advised Minnie Driver to pass on THE GOOD WIFE. Good thing Julianna wasn’t with them!
@silly, just for fun, what is the going rate now a days for managers and agents?
excuse my naivite: this show rescued Julianna from obscurity and made her one of the the hottest actresses on TV. It happened while D/F was managing her. Why wouldn’t they be entitled to their commission?
what planet are you from? Why don’t we all work for free for these actors.
10% commission for management is common across the board… You wouldn’t find very many management companies working for more/less.
if you knew what you were writing about, you’d know that UNTITLED is one of the very few management companies that reduce commissions by half and very often they merely set a monthly retainer fee for the “red carpet” names they enjoy walking down the red carpet. this is their standard and practice from day one, but it is not industry standard and practice.
Pay your fair share, Julianna!
(Isn’t that what liberals demand of everyone else?)
don’t managers charge 10%..what does Untitled Charge these days
They can try to sue her, but if she turns her Alicia Florick on, they will lose
well I guess she’s going to need that lawyer that she was going to get rid of….
Haha, true.
Steve is a hard working manager….and classy guy…she should be ashamed…glad they are going after her and I hope they get everything they are owed plus all legal fees!!!!
And what SHOULD a manager be charging?
She wants to save money? She turned down $20 Million from Warner Bros. and NBC to sign a longterm contract when she was on “ER” and now she wants to stiff her managers? She could have made a fortune if she had just stayed on ER so this serves her right now. She’s lucky to be back on a hit show.
So she was paying 10percent to her manager 10 percent to her agent 5 percent to her lawyer and 5 percent to her business manager?! That’s 25percent of her salary before taxes. In any other business that would be called outrageous.
Yes, but she’s not in any other business. In show business, actors and actresses earn “outrageously” high salaries. They have a team and the team gets paid. The time to object is BEFORE your team does work for you, not after they successfully get you on a hit show.
Get you on a hit show?? You mean – in this case at least – pick up the phone a lot, read scripts WITH the actress, and offer advice. The manager can’t directly negotiate, and this was a package show at the agency anyway. 10% a week on a front-end salary north of 150K a week? Are you insane?? Who is worth that much?
You are correct!!
10 + 10 + 5 + 5 = 30
Just pay the hardworking people what they deserve.
I love how actors always think they got where they are by themselves. Pay up, Margulies!
My manager is worth every penny and more. MK, I love you!
Managers charge 10% – nobody charges less than than unless they take someone who is already got a deal on the table beforehand. The moron at the top of the page is uninformed.
Personally – I think a lot of managers are a waste of time, and not a fan of Steve – BUT – I am still against a client not paying what they owe. If the manager was on board at the time of the booking, than she needs to pay up. I love Good Wife – but I am disgusted by her behavior on this.
Stand strong, Steve and Frank! Win for those of us who didn’t have the money to sue to receive our HARD-EARNED commission! You guys deserve it!
It is irrelevant what managers “should” charge. What is relevant in this case, or any client – manager/agent relationship, is what fee is agreed upon between the parties.
Based on what was presented in this posting, it is very likely that Ms. Margulies will lose on the point of whether she will owe D/F monies between when she left the company and when her time with “The Good Wife” ends. Also, it is likely that the court will afford D/F monies based on what was paid during the time that her deal on TGW began and when she left D/F.
I’d like to point out to anyone who is reading that most of these commenters are insiders…and it is so obvious that it is painful.
Note, first, the timing of the comment thread: one piling up next to the other, almost in a stream. Then there are the “all lower case” names, all agreeing with each other — followed by the person who can’t even come up with something creative: all proper names, all with a capital letter.
This is such a classic case of “swamp Nikki’s comment thread” that I’ve actually made a digital copy of it, because it is, well, so see-through. Did someone at X/X tell two people to comment-crap for an hour?
Here’s the reality: There is no contract. If D/F wanted to have a formal contract with JM, they would have entered into one. But they didn’t, probably because she didn’t want one. Without an agreement on termination, this so-called Oral Contract would continue until when exactly? THE END OF TIME???
Take #33, for instance. “The Contract is a binding, valid, and enforceable agreement.” Really? What are it’s exact terms? How are the parties bound? Through some ridiculousness called “well-established customs and practices in the industry”??
Now, I’ve read enough Finke to know that this could be really interesting: Exactly which of the well-established practices does this (invisible) contract include? And what are the EXACT terms of this (invisible) contract that are held together with “well-established customs”?
I could name a whole HOST of well-established industry customs that I really hope AREN’T in that contract, D/F…like having CONTRACTS.
What a bunch of nothing.
Maybe JM might need to consider hiring Patti Nyholm, Louise Canning, Elsbeth Tascioni to get rid of D/F.
Just kidding. I think D/F deserves the commision they worked so hard to earn.
It would be interesting to see the IP addresses of all of the over-the-top-phony-jump-on-the-manager-bandwagon comments in this thread.
Most of the comments names fall into two categories:
People with proper names (but no last names) and each with a capital letter: Drew, Ricardo, Martine, Bob, Luke, Tammy, Paul
People with proper names (but no last names) and no caps at all: stanley, chris, patricia, cappy.
And…shocking! They all think that managers are brilliant and that Marguilies is a bad person who should just pay up.
It’s so transparent, it’s actually pathetic.
And…noteworthy.
Most of the time, when people comment-dump, they do it MUCH better than this. This is just obvious.
Maybe so, maven. Nevertheless, they’re right. JM has no case whatsoever. She will likely settle.
Maybe the reason that all of the comments are in favor of the manager’s position is because the manager is right. If you disagree, all of us would love for you to explain your legal theory as to why she does not owe the commissions.
Managers charge anywhere from 25% down to 10% and of what ? gross and/or agreed net, costs that might include an agents fee, Lawyers and Accountant’s fees, off the top. These days managers are expected to do more than just manage, also they might package employment vehicles for their clients or go into some form of co-venture arrangement. Whatever the scenario where a manager acts in another capacity full transparency and agreement should be reached between the client and manager, what have you. Both parties pay for the independent lawyer (is there one in Hollywood?) and accountant to do the actual boilerplate deals and the accounting respectively, at arms length, again open to complete inspection by either party.
Unlike a builder who can say look at the wall I made today, money please, often Managers seem to do little, like rejecting bad deals, appearances etc. Though in this scenario nothing was achieved in material terms, service was provided and work done to ensure the client wasn’t getting stiffed or making bad moves.
So what really happened between Dontanville and Margulies? Where’s Kesheshian? I thought ll these people were friends?
Reviewing the lawsuit:
–Manager worked for ONE MONTH before Good Wife deal was signed sealed and delivered. They don’t mention if they sent her on any auditions for the job and they don’t produce the negotiating memos saying that they did the deal or even made a pitch on her behalf. Looks to me like they jumped on the bandwagon at the last minute and that they were NOT responsible for getting her that work, even though she graciously thanks her entire team.
–It does not appear that the manager has gotten ANY other work, in two years for Julianna. No hiatus movies, no capitalizing on her celebrity.
–Loreal was a deal done by her AGENT, not her manager. Managers do not typically deal with print contracts. So whether that deal is subject to industry norms is VERY questionable.
Sum total: They *might* have worked on the Good Wife deal part way through–a couple of weeks of work, max. Then they sat on their laurels while she worked insane schedules. And she paid them for 2 YEARS. Probably a million or more. Nice pay day, D/F. Be thankful and go away.
–Julianna seems very gracious and appreciative in her emails and speeches. That shouldn’t be held against her now — it proves nothing. Actually makes her look like a nice person. Backfire.
–bringing up her very understandable need to cut lawyer costs to drive a wedge between her and her legal team is a dick move on D/F’s part. 5% for a lawyer that only does something in a blue moon (her words) is too much. People aren’t paying that any more, and a quality manager should have advised her that way anyway–instead she had to ask. Managers wasn’t getting her enough new work to justify the lawyer. It makes sense and she stated it nicely.
Regardless of percentages, do you think it is reasonable to pay a manager more than a million dollars (she’s already paid them) when they haven’t even gotten you a single new job? What exactly are they doing for their money? They don’t discuss publicity appearances, so I’m guessing her publicist and the show itself handle that. All they’ve proven is ONE EMAIL where they lightly advised her to take the pilot.
D/K … sorry, but the gravy train is over.
You have no idea what you are talking about:
1. Julianna hired them. What a manager does during a deal is make sure the client gets the best deal. Not just a deal. And, she hired them!
2. “Appear” is the problem. They managed her day-to-day life. If she didn’t need them she would not have hired them. Agents procure work. That’s it. They do nothing else. And, in the case of name talent they don’t even pick up the phone. Casting has a list. The client falls somewhere on the list. Not much for the agent to do.
3. Actually, her attorney did the deal! The agent and manager do it with the attorney. In a simple world you only need an attorney then.
4. She’s gracious in her emails because the day-to-day shit a manager deals with is hard work. It’s talking through the days script they hate etc..
5. Dead wrong.
6. YES! Managers aren’t there to get a job, fool! In fact, they only help get jobs when a client is an unknown. Julianna falls under known. There is nothing to do. Sure, you pick up the phone and say what about Julianna for this role if she isn’t on the list for some reason. And if she isn’t then she’s wrong for it. Casting says we already have her on the list and will be seeing her. Hang up. It’s that simple, guy.
Anonymous is a secretary or possibly a secretary at a TV network. He hasn’t a clue. I’ve been a manager and an agent at big firms. Everyone can do the same thing. But honestly, the manager cares more because they have less clients. If they don’t have less clients then they are acting as an agency. Agencies make lots of deals. It’s a numbers game. Managers should have fewer clients so they care more about the client. Capiche?
What are the main, objective differences between an agent and a manager?
As for the attorney, I actually understand why JM would not want to continue to give her lawyer five percent.
Here’s the question no one asked. Per the report, she hired these people in February 2009, but when did SHE get hired to play “The Good Wife”? If she was hired before they were, why would they need to be paid anything after she dropped them in 2011? Did they bring her onto “The Good Wife?” If not, why should she pay now?
Is this, like, the ultimate hard-to-get or what?!?
Enough with the PC take on agents and managers.
Consistent visibility is what it takes today and each can give the other fresh ideas and an enlightened loyal opposition rooted in their mutual client’s best career interests and pursuits.
But the client’s income shouldn’t be treated like pirate booty to be plundered just because they’re hot!
The legal issue is does an oral contract in CA include implied but not stated conditions in this case continued payment after termination. Maybe, but probably not. All the screaming and big old queen foot stamping in the world by Steve Dontanville is not going to beat the law.