CHAZ RAINEY

Chaz Rainey serves as an arbitrator and mediator in complex civil and commercial disputes. His neutral service includes sole and three-arbitrator appointments. He has presided over contested proceedings through final resolution, including motion practice, merits hearings, and reasoned awards, and brings the same practical, commercial perspective to mediation.

His neutral practice is grounded in substantial experience as an advocate. Rainey founded and managed a multi-jurisdictional litigation firm before becoming a partner at a Los Angeles–based boutique with a robust entertainment litigation practice. For more than a decade in private practice, he maintained an active trial and appellate docket for plaintiffs and defendants, routinely leading complex commercial, intellectual-property, entertainment, constitutional, and regulated-industry matters from inception through trial or appeal. His work often placed him opposite national insurers, major corporations, studios, digital platforms, and government agencies and extended into domestic and international arbitration.

Rainey has also spent much of his career inside regulated and content-driven businesses. As early in-house counsel to a sports-wagering startup, he helped build the legal and regulatory infrastructure supporting its launch and expansion and continued as outside counsel through its acquisition by William Hill. After Stan Lee’s death, numerous parties asserted overlapping claims to his name, image, likeness, trademarks, and related intellectual property. As General Counsel of POW! Entertainment, Rainey coordinated litigation and arbitration across multiple fronts, secured dispositive and appellate rulings that protected and clarified control of those rights, and helped consolidate them within a single rights-holding entity.

He now serves as Executive Vice President and Head of Business and Legal Affairs at Kartoon Studios, Inc. (NYSE American: TOON), where he advises senior leadership and oversees legal and business affairs for a global portfolio of more than 800 film and television titles. This breadth informs a neutral approach grounded in careful preparation, proportionate procedure, close attention to the record, and clear decisions responsive to both the governing law and the practical stakes.