Blair Berk

Blair Bernholz grew up in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where her father was a top criminal defense attorney. Her mother, also a lawyer, represented students at the University of North Carolina. A large Los Angeles firm recruited her from Harvard in 1990 and assigned her to handle entertainment cases. Los Angeles is a company town, she explained, and the company is the entertainment industry. Her first assignment was to defend Ozzy Osbourne, whose song lyrics were being blamed in a civil suit following the suicide of a Georgia teen. She dispatched a couple of other celebrity cases without fanfare. And when her mentor at the firm, Barry Tarlow, decided to branch out on his own, he invited her to come along, promising to make her a partner. Berk jumped at the chance. Her clients have included Kiefer Sutherland, Heather Locklear, Mel Gibson, Leonardo DiCaprio, Mackenzie Phillips, Ozzy Osbourne, Halle Berry, Reese Witherspoon, Ryan Seacrest, Lindsay Lohan and Queen Latifah. Berk is married to a writer-producer and has a daughter.