Allen Grubman

Allen J. Grubman is an American entertainment lawyer.

Early life and education Grubman was born and raised in Crown Heights, in Brooklyn, New York.

He attended City College of New York, where he earned a B.B.A While attending Brooklyn Law School, where he earned a J.D., he worked in the mailroom at the William Morris Agency and as a CBS page.

Grubman subsequently started his own business. In the 1970s, he signed obscure disco artists who later became popular, and went on to represent a number of major stars.

In 1992 Business Week reported that Grubman was considered "the most powerful lawyer in the music business."

His clients have included Springsteen, Madonna, U2, John Mellencamp, Rod Stewart, Sean "Puffy" Combs, Luther Vandross, Elton John, Jennifer Lopez, Mariah Carey, and Andrew Lloyd Webber.

In May 2020, the hacker group REvil claimed to have hacked and downloaded a huge amount data from Grubman's law firm, and demanded $42 million ransom to prevent release of data. In 2022, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the Ahmet Ertegun Award category for negotiating ground-breaking long-term agreements for his clients that allow them to maintain creative control of their work.

Family

After graduating from law school, he met his first wife, Yvette Fischer Grubman. After 19 years of marriage, she divorced him in 1988. She died of cancer in 2001 at the age of 58.

They had two daughters, their elder being Lizzie Grubman, a celebrity publicist. Their younger daughter Jennifer Grubman Rothenberg holds a BA from Boston University and a J.D. from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, is President of Innovative Philanthropy, and is a member of the Board of Directors of Cardozo Law School.

Grubman remarried in 1991, at the New York Public Library. He is Jewish.