About Cheryl L
Cheryl L Hodgson has built a career at the intersection of law, music and brand-building. Her trajectory moves from courtroom training in the 1970s to boardrooms and classrooms in later decades. The arc is steady and contains several ventures that reflect both legal practice and creative enterprise.
Her academic path began with a Bachelor of Arts in English and Business from Louisiana Tech University. She earned a Juris Doctor from The University of Denver Sturm College of Law in 1976. Decades later she returned to graduate study, taking a Master of Arts in Spiritual Psychology from the University of Santa Monica in 2013.
She is admitted to practice in New York, California and Tennessee. Early in her career she established Hodgson Legal in 1985. In 2000 she served as general counsel at Probstein Weiner & Hodgson, a role that placed her inside a firm environment after years of solo practice. She went on to found Canto Novo Music in 2004 and Brandaide in 2008, ventures that reflect ongoing ties to the music and branding worlds.
Those dual interests — intellectual property law and the music business — recur throughout her work. She has taught music law at Loyola University School of Law, a position that brought classroom experience to her professional agenda. Her teaching complemented a practice that often dealt with copyrights, trademarks and issues common to artists and labels.
Her professional associations include membership in the International Trademark Association and the Los Angeles Copyright Society. She serves on the board of the California Copyright Conference and has been its president. She is also a member of the Intellectual Property Section of the State Bar of California. Those roles have kept her connected to developments in copyright and trademark law and to other practitioners in those fields.
Her career includes both private practice and in-house work, along with entrepreneurial efforts in music and brand services. Those ventures have given her a mix of perspectives: the day-to-day demands of counseling clients, the responsibilities of managing a small firm, and the organizational tasks of running a startup. She continues to practice through Hodgson Legal, handling intellectual property matters and related legal issues for clients in the entertainment and creative fields.
