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The L.A. law firm Lavely & Singer is getting all sorts of notice in connection with a supposed deal two years ago that had Tiger agreeing to a spread for Men's Fitness magazine in return for the National Enquirer (owned by the company that also owns Men's Fitness) agreeing to kill a story about his fooling around. The story broke a couple of weeks ago (I've lost track on a lot of this) and was picked up today by the WSJ.
The Century City firm is a boutique operation with fewer than 20 attorneys, but it's well known within the narrow world of celebrity crisis management. Its most famous technique - one I experienced myself - is the cease-and-desist letter. It usually arrives by messenger and basically warns you not to publish a certain article about a certain celebrity. Otherwise... well, heaven help you. To the uninitiated, the warnings can be scary - one of my old publishers was on the verge of killing a big story until our libel lawyer assured him that the threats were all bluster. The problem with using this tactic over and over again is that after a while editors and publishers stop getting scared. Here's a snippet from a 2006 WSJ profile of the firm.
William Bastone, the editor of the Smoking Gun, has posted on the site numerous Lavely & Singer letters sent to other media outlets as well, including dispatches related to topless photos of actress Jennifer Aniston and reports called false by Lavely & Singer that actress Catherine Zeta-Jones was on the Atkins diet. "We share the letters with the world because we shouldn't be the only ones enjoying Lavely & Singer's tough-guy threats," says Mr. Bastone, who sometimes calls up a digital photo of the 54-year-old Mr. Singer on his computer. Sometimes, "you gotta poke the tiger with the stick."
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Lawyers representing celebrities have to contend with a body of U.S. libel law that tilts in the media's favor. Stories about public figures, including entertainers and politicians, are afforded an additional layer of legal protection. A public figure alleging libel must prove that the publication acted with "actual malice," which means it published something it knew to be false or recklessly disregarded the truth. Truth is an absolute defense in a libel suit. Last month, a California state court rejected a defamation claim brought by Lavely & Singer on behalf of Britney Spears against US Weekly. Ms. Spears alleged the magazine libeled her when it published an article about a sexually explicit home video she purportedly made with her husband. (Ms. Spears recently filed for divorce.)
Here is what the law firm apparently worked on for Woods in 2007, again from the Journal:
Mark Lacter created the LA Biz Observed blog in 2006. He posted
until the day before his death on Nov. 13, 2013.