Class 7 Guest Speakers: Jim Alam & Rob Edgar

Jim Alam and Rob Edgar will together reflect on the kinds of real-world legal issues that come up when a video game is produced. The magic is that they will be jointly presenting from the perspective of Jim as lawyer and Rob as client. Biographical information on each of them follows.

Jim Alam is a partner at Koffman, Kalef LLP. Jim a business lawyer with a practice focusing on all aspects of corporate commercial transactions but with a particular interest in video game law. Jim acts for a number of clients in the video game industry, both locally and in the U.S./international context. Jim has broad experience advising clients on intellectual property licensing, video game development and publishing, and video game financing issues and assists clients with preparing and negotiating all aspects of video game industry contracts. When we were both at Davis LLP and beyond, Jim was very involved and assisted in the conception of the book “Video Game Law”, as well as with preparation of syllabi and course materials for early iterations of this course. Jim has routinely attended major video game trade functions, including the E3 Expo, PAX and IGDA functions.

Rob Edgar brings over 15 years of proven experience in video game business development, licensing and marketing. In 1996 Rob co-founded FirstWeb, a class leading interactive agency specializing in video game marketing. Under his leadership, the company grew to be one of the top agencies in the industry. In 2005, Rob joined LA-based Union Entertainment as a Video Game Agent, quickly becoming one of the top performers at the agency. With strong business sense and creative passion, Rob established a successful track record closing deals with some of the industries biggest players, including Activision, Amazon, Electronic Arts, Disney Interactive, Sega, among others which total more than $100M. Rob also has experience in raising capital in both the public and private markets, as well as advising clients on M&A matters. Rob has served as a Mentor for the Great Canadian Video Game Competition, a judge for the Canadian Video Game awards and advised the Irish Government on Economic Development for their Digital Media sector.

In 2010, Rob co-founded a video game management company, Birthplace Management Group Inc (BMG – www.bpmginc.com). This company now represents some of the industry’s top studios. At BMG, Rob continues to source, package and close deals for clients as well as serve as an advisor and mentor to several other Digital Media companies.

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