Background
Michael Donaldson earned his law degree in 1967 at the University of California at Berkeley after a three-year stint in the United States Marine Corps. He has been an entertainment lawyer for more than thirty years. He is General Counsel to the Independent Feature Project/West (IFP/W) and the International Documentary Association (IDA).

Michael is a member of the Beverly Hills Bar Association (Past Co-Chairman, Entertainment Section), California State Bar Association, American Bar Association (Sports and Entertainment Section) and Los Angeles Copyright Society. He is listed in Who's Who in American Law, current edition.

Books
Michael wrote Negotiating For Dummies which has sold over 100,000 copies in English and has been translated into six languages. It is a Book-Of-The-Month Club selection and is in its sixth printing. He recorded a book on tape version for Harper-Collins. He also wrote Do It Yourself! Trademarks & Copyrights , 1995 which is in its second printing and Clearance & Copyright: Everything the Filmmaker Needs to Know, published by Silman-James in 2003. He also wrote the introduction to Conversations with Michael Landon, 1992.

You can order Michael's Books on Amazon through the links below:
Negotiating For Dummies
Clearance & Copyright: Everything the Filmmaker Needs to Know

Seminars
Michael is a popular Keynote speaker on the subject of copyright, film and negotiating. He has spoken at the Cannes Film Festival, Seattle Film Festival, Palm Springs and Vancouver Film Festivals. He has lectured and/or participated as a panelist for many organizations including U.C.L.A. Extension, University of Houston, University of California, Davis (in Los Angeles), Montgomery Watson University, Colorado, California Lawyers for the Arts, The Independent Feature Project/West, International Documentary Association, The Los Angeles Independent Film Festival, The Sedona Conference, Arizona, Sundance Film Festival, Women in Film, Los Angeles, The Writers Guild Foundation and Cigga Hotels in Milan, Italy. Additionally, he has provided testimony as an expert witness in various entertainment lawsuits.