## Facts

- Mario Solis was a local television sports reporter and news anchor who was approached by a network interested in employing him.
- Solis retained James Blancarte, a California-licensed attorney practicing through a professional corporation, to negotiate the terms of Solis’s employment contract with the network.
- The parties’ engagement arrangement compensated Blancarte through an ongoing percentage commission tied to Solis’s earnings under the network employment contract (rather than a one-time legal fee).
- Blancarte negotiated Solis’s initial employment agreement with the network and later negotiated renewals affecting Solis’s continuing employment and compensation.
- For several years, Solis paid Blancarte commissions, then stopped making commission payments.
- Blancarte filed a civil action seeking to recover unpaid commissions due under the engagement arrangement.
- Solis responded by filing a Petition to Determine Controversy before the California Labor Commissioner under the Talent Agencies Act (TAA), contending the engagement was void because Blancarte procured employment without holding a talent agency license.
- Blancarte argued that he acted as an attorney providing legal services and that attorneys should be exempt from the TAA’s licensing requirements.

## Issues

1. Whether negotiating an artist’s employment contract and related renewals constitutes “procuring employment” regulated by the California Talent Agencies Act.
2. Whether a California-licensed attorney is exempt from the TAA when the attorney negotiates employment for an artist in exchange for a commission.
3. If the attorney engaged in unlicensed talent-agency activity, whether the commission-based engagement agreement is illegal, void, and unenforceable, barring recovery of unpaid commissions.

## Decision

- The California Labor Commissioner determined that Blancarte attempted to procure and did procure employment for Solis within the meaning of the TAA by negotiating Solis’s employment agreement and renewals.
- The Commissioner rejected the claim that Blancarte’s status as a licensed attorney exempted him from the TAA’s licensing requirement.
- Because Blancarte did not hold a talent agency license, the Commissioner found a violation of Labor Code section 1700.5.
- The engagement agreement for commissions was deemed illegal, void, and unenforceable, preventing Blancarte from enforcing it to collect further commissions.

## Legal Principles

- Under the Talent Agencies Act, a person may not engage in the occupation of a talent agency—i.e., procuring employment for an artist—without first obtaining a license from the California Labor Commissioner. (Lab. Code § 1700.5.)
- Negotiating the terms of an artist’s employment agreement can qualify as “procuring employment” under the TAA, even when performed in the context of contract negotiations rather than auditions or job searches.
- The TAA does not recognize a general exemption for licensed attorneys; a law license does not authorize unlicensed employment procurement that falls within the statute’s regulation.
- An agreement calling for compensation (including percentage commissions) for unlicensed talent-agency services is illegal, void, and unenforceable under the TAA’s remedial scheme, and the unlicensed procurer may be barred from recovering compensation under that agreement.

## Conclusion

In *Solis v. Blancarte*, the California Labor Commissioner treated an attorney’s commission-based negotiation of a broadcaster’s employment contract as regulated “procurement” under the Talent Agencies Act, found no attorney exemption, and declared the commission agreement void and unenforceable, which barred the attorney from collecting unpaid commissions.


Solis v. Blancarte, TAC-27089 (2013)