SCOTT FRANCIS: LAWYER TO PUB EXEC TO BREWER

In the week since our latest print issue, which focused on music attorneys and their firms, we’ve discovered that numerous music execs previously practiced law—so many, in fact, that our 7/19 Rumor Mill item, “From Law Firm to Label,” barely scratched the surface, as it turned out. Case in point: Scott Francis, who headed Warner/Chappell and BMG Songs N.A., was previously an attorney at Levine Thall & Plotkin and Meyer Katz.

Francis’ latest career move began in 2014, when he opened the now-thriving Santa Monica Brew Works—“even though the only thing I knew about beer was that if I drank two, I fell down,” he quips. On top of that, he just spent a year as a consultant for Beyoncé and her Parkwood Entertainment.

One of the most forward-looking and lucrative deals Scott was involved with at WCM was with Lin-Manuel Miranda in 2008, seven years before the opening of Hamilton.