Robert A Darwell

Practice Areas

Bob Darwell is the Head of Global Media and a senior partner in the Entertainment, Technology and Advertising practice in the firm's Century City office. In August 2024, the Beverly Hills Bar Association honored Darwell as Entertainment Lawyer of the Year and in January 2025, AMEC (Association of Media and Entertainment Counsel) awarded Sheppard's Entertainment practice as Counsel of the Year.

Bob's team worked on the acquisition and development of hundreds of motion picture and television projects. After representing Amazon in connection with its acquisition of MGM, Amazon's second-largest acquisition in history, Bob and his colleagues worked with their in-house counterparts on the integration of the revered MGM library into Amazon MGM Studios. On top of that, Bob also guided Amazon MGM Studios, Wondery, Twitch, Nickelodeon, Disney, Peacock and Meta in connection with numerous high-profile movie, television, podcast and AI projects.

Over the course of Bob's legal career, he's worked on the development, finance, production and distribution of hundreds of motion pictures and television productions (including personal favorites such as "Traffic," "Brokeback Mountain" and "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind"). In addition, he regularly handles major newsworthy deals such as Disney's termination of Bob and Harvey Weinstein (which garnered him the prestigious CLAY Award as California Entertainment Lawyer of the Year for Entertainment) and Disney's subsequent sale of Miramax. Bob also acted as lead entertainment counsel to Comcast in connection with its acquisition of NBC Universal.