Attorneys

Partner

Rodney E. Beard

Rodney E. Beard is a results ­driven attorney with a comprehensive background emphasizing transactions, business organization, civil litigation, and corporate strategy. He is an effective written and verbal communicator known for building strategic alliances. He achieves client objectives by assessing liability and damages exposure, drafting appropriate instruments, and resolving disputes efficiently.

Mr. Beard has served as outside general counsel for small to medium ­sized companies, and advises clients in all legal matters, including contract creation, negotiation and interpretation, business start­ups and employment issues. He helps his clients build their corporate intellectual property holdings through copyright and trademark registrations. Mr. Beard helps to structure for profit and non­profit corporations, conversions and dissolutions. He offers counsel regarding strategy and planning, media communications and public relations. He also has achieved favorable results for clients in personal injury, collection, and criminal matters.

Mr. Beard has worked in the sports and entertainment industries for nearly 25 years. He studied international intellectual property in Amsterdam and in Geneva at the World Intellectual Property Organization. He is active in the community, where he has served in various leadership positions for local organizations over the years, including Houston Area Urban League, The Endeavor for Hope Foundation and others. He is a patron of the performing and visual arts, enjoys global travel, and loves NOLA.

Partner

Justen S. Barks

Justen S. Barks is a commercial, intellectual property, and entertainment litigator. His experience in the courtroom helps his clients in their various transaction needs. For his commercial clients, he provides work in the form of risk management counselling, litigation in state and federal courts, mediation, contract drafting and negotiation. His intellectual property practice includes a mix of work with the U.S. Trademark Office, the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board, the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals, the U.S. Copyright Office, and copyright, patent, and trademark litigation.

Mr. Barks was trained by some of the best instructors in the music industry, and has practical experience in all aspects of the entertainment industry. He helps his entertainment clients by counseling the creation and retention of royalty streams, drafting and negotiating film, book, and music industry agreements, and litigation in the areas of entertainment and media, including copyright infringement, management agreements, and claims under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

In addition to his work as an attorney with Beard & Barks PLLC, Mr. Barks is an adjunct professor of law at the University of Houston Law Center, where he teaches a course on entertainment law (2014 to present). He is also the Director of the University of Houston Law Center’s Entertainment Law Clinic. Mr. Barks also donates his time pro bono to the Texas Accountants and Lawyers for the arts and for the University of Houston Law Center Intrascholastic Mock Trial Team. He was named to the annual list of Top Lawyers in Houston for his entertainment practice by Houstonia Magazine each year from 2016-18.