Jason Aylesworth is a partner at Sendroff & Baruch, LLP, and received the New York State Bar Association’s Outstanding Young Lawyer of the Year Award in 2016. He has been recognized by Super Lawyers since 2017, and this year has been recognized by Best Lawyers.
Jason began his law career as a file clerk for the music law firm of Mayer, Katz, Baker, Leibowitz and Roberts, P.C., which represented such music labels as Atlantic and Electra Records. After that firm’s dissolution in 1996, he worked for Sendroff & Associates, P.C. as an office manager and financial administrator. Ten years later, inspired by the firm’s involvement in a wide variety of entertainment matters, Jason attended Touro Law Center, while assisting with licenses, contracts and filings as a full-time Legal Assistant to Mark Sendroff.
Jason received a number of awards for his work at Touro, including a Graduation Award for his services to the New York State Bar Association, the CALI Award for Excellence for his performance in Drafting Commercial Documents and the 2009 Lawyer Assistance Trust Law School Award for his services as the Lawyers Assistance Program representative during his final year at Touro. In 2016 he received the Outstanding Young Alumni of the Year Award.
As an attorney for Sendroff & Baruch, LLP since 2009, he represents a wide variety of artists in theatre, music, film and television including dramatists, performers, directors, choreographers, orchestrators, arrangers, programmers and designers, as well as producers, music publishers and theatre companies.
Jason was an active member of the Entertainment Arts and Sports Law Section (EASL) of the New York State Bar Association serving as Treasurer on the Executive Board, as well as chair of the Law Student Liaison committee for EASL. He created and moderated the EASL CLE programs The TMZ Effect: The Legal Issues and Consequences for the Sports and Entertainment Industry Arising Out of the Unexpected Release of Purported Private Information to the Public, Crowdfunding for Theatre and Film Under the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act of 2012 and Game Not Over: Protection of Free Speech in the Video Game Industry, and moderated the EASL CLE program Is Manga a Crime? Non-photographic Images, Child Pornography and Freedom of Expression. In addition, Jason’s articles Mediation in Film, Television, Art and Real Life and The Childlike Novelty of Video Games, and Its Serious Progeny of Legal Challenges for Adults were published in the Spring 2013 publication of Entertainment, Arts and Sports Law Journal. Jason’s piece The Evolution of Fair Use was published in the Fall, 2018 publication of the EASL Journal, as part of the article 30 Years Later – The Show Must Go On: Current Trends and Issues in the Theatre Industry.
He has served as a guest lecturer at Cardozo Law School, Touro Law Center, Commercial Theatre Institute, Practicing Law Institute, Lawyers Alliance, New York Foundation for the Arts, Brooklyn Arts Council, Baruch College, Vienna Music Institute, University of New Haven, Dwight-Englewood School and the School of Visual Arts on such areas of law including Copyright, Contract Negotiation and Drafting Commercial Documents. He previously taught “Performing Arts and the Law” for the Brooklyn College MFA Performing Arts Management Program for its graduate students. Jason also created and taught a six-part online CLE series on drafting commercial contracts for the New York City Bar Association during the Covid pandemic.
Jason received his Bachelors of Arts degree from Fordham University (where he majored in Theatre and Economics), and his Certificate in Film Production from Brooklyn College. He is admitted to the Bar in both Connecticut and New York.