This weekend, millions of people tuned in to the 90th Academy Awards to see dazzling outfits, moving speeches and the results of a lot of behind-the-scenes legal work.

Since 1986, John Quinn, name partner Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, has served as the outside general counsel to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Last week, Legal Week sister title Corporate Counsel spoke with Quinn about what it's like to help prepare for one of the biggest nights in show business.

Corporate Counsel: How did you become the general counsel of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences?

John Quinn: I was the outside litigator on IP issues, and so we got to know each other and then I got to know the institution, the people here, and when the previous GC retired they asked me if I wanted the job.

What does your role look like when it isn't award-show season?

It is a year-round job. It's a non-profit with several hundred employees. Financial issues come up every year, contracts that need to be renegotiated. Those don't coincide with the award season, usually. Just the IP issues, potential infringements, not only in the US but around the world. And the [Academy Museum of Motion Pictures] is a major undertaking, with all types of issues ranging from construction issues to what types of governance should the museum have, what type of board, what should the relationship be with the museum and the academy. 

What you see at award season, that's the most visible part, but the academy has year-round operations, promoting motion picture arts and sciences in many different ways.

What kinds of litigation have you found yourself involved in as the outside GC for the Oscars? Is that mostly led by Quinn Emanuel?

Most of the litigation in the US, we will be counsel, lead counsel, to the academy. Outside of the US, we work with foreign firms, local firms.

How do you put on a different hat when acting as the academy's GC?

It's a little bit of a different role in that at the law firm we're very oriented toward all litigation all the time, that's the focus of our practice and most of what we've found at the academy is not that. It's more trying to resolve disputes. In a sense, it's not that different from litigation in that you're [analysing] the way to an objective and what are the risks of taking a particular course of action.

In the past, the academy's legal team has played a big role in preventing the sale of old awards statues. Is that a common issue?

That's usually pretty rare. When a recipient receives an Oscar, they go back into the green room and before they get the Oscar, take possession of it, we include an agreement with the right of first refusal, that before they transfer it to someone else, they agree to offer it to the academy for $10. The academy views that statue as a very important symbol of strong achievement and they don't think it's appropriate to have the statues be bought and sold in the marketplace. We do seek to enforce this. I think there actually hasn't been one in a few years now.

What does the academy have in the way of a legal department?

They have two lawyers on staff at the academy.

What's your working relationship like with them?

It's a very close working relationship. I've worked with Scott Miller, the senior lawyer in-house for maybe 20 years. Basically, the default approach I would say is that if something can be handled completely in-house by them, that's how it will be handled, they'll decide whether they want to involve us.

On a litigation matter, they don't do litigation in-house, so we will invariably be involved. If it's something involving the board level, corporate governance issues, ABC contracts issues, we'll be involved in those types of things.

In recent years we've seen the #OscarsSoWhite movement, and in the film industry more generally, #MeToo. Is the academy taking any steps to address the concerns raised by these movements, and if so, what has your role been?

The academy's response to those issues came from within the academy. The leadership of the academy, and board of governors have always wanted to be a leader on issues relating to fairness, equity, social justice, diversity, treatment of women. In terms of helping to draft a code of conduct and the changes that were made in response to the #OscarsSoWhite phenomenon, we're very much involved in that. The initiative comes from the membership and leadership of the academy.

So it's mostly changes to the code of conduct? 

There certainly have been those things, but the academy had actually been very focused on diversity and the need to diversify its membership even before the whole #OscarsSoWhite phenomenon became a thing. And you had an unfortunate fact that two years running there weren't African-American or minority nominees and that certainly did accelerate the process of introspection and change that was already underway at the academy. There were certain bylaw changes made in response to that.

Did you get tangled up in the Best Picture mix-up last year?

As you can imagine, there's a lot of concern and disappointment at the academy with how that all went down. PwC has been a longtime partner of the academy and for decades had done a job without incident, and then all it takes is one. There was a process of trying to understand how did that happen and how do we make sure that doesn't happen in the future and we did have some involvement in that.

To their credit, PwC really took the lead. They definitely don't want to see this happen again, so there were measures they implemented, measures that were agreed upon. [We] put in controls and protocols, not that there hadn't been controls and protocols in the past, but to try to make them fail-safe and minimise the potential for error.

Do you go to the awards themselves?

I've seen them all since I became GC. I attend the show. I always have the ABC contract in my pocket in case there's some issue that comes up.

One night my wife gave birth the night of the Oscar show and we went straight to the hospital. I can always remember when that show was, that was when Disney got upset about the portrayal of Snow White.

Have you ever been starstruck on the red carpet?

I don't really get starstruck by motion picture people. I've gotten to know some of them, and the people I [meet] at the academy are talented filmmakers and artists but also delightful and interesting people. But I wouldn't describe my admiration at all as starstruck. They're nice people and enjoyable to know.

Anything else about your role that you'd like to add?

We review the script for the show, to try to keep our eye out for material someone might object to on legal grounds.

It's a great privilege to be involved with the academy. It's a fine organisation where people come from all over - really great filmmakers from all parts of filmmaking, shorts to documentaries, not only in the US, but internationally. [People] come together to really try to do a good thing, to promote the arts and science of motion pictures, which is one art form that speaks to and is very accessible to people all around the world.