Founding and Former Managing Shareholder
Greenberg Traurig LLP
Class Year: 1979
Mark G. Tratos ’79 is Founding and former Managing Shareholder of the Las Vegas office of Greenberg Traurig LLP, which boasts the largest group of entertainment lawyers in Nevada. He devotes his practice to the entertainment industry, handling intellectual property and a variety of litigation matters for a number of artists, managers, casinos, hotels, and actors and other performers.
Mark practices mostly in federal court, litigating disputes concerning trademarks, copyrights, domain names, and rights of publicity and privacy. He numbers among his clients the estates of Malcolm X, Jackie Robinson, Marilyn Monroe, Anthony Quinn, James Dean, and Orson Welles. He has also represented such performers as Ozzy Osbourne, R.J. Teller of “Penn & Teller,” David Copperfield, and The Masked Magician. He has represented numerous visual artists, including Russian visual artist Vladimir Kush, who he represented in a high-profile copyright infringement case against Ariana Grande and her music publisher and production company, international landscape photographer Peter Lik, and artists from Andy Warhol’s factory in New York, like Ronnie Cutrone and Christopher Makos. He has represented a variety of boxers including undefeated world champion Floyd Mayweather, Jr. Mark defended Mayweather in a multi-million dollar copyright infringement action involving his appearance on WWE’s WrestleMania 24. On behalf of Teller, Mark enforced a pantomime copyright for the well-known shadow illusion. Mark also has experience with branding, having represented Studio 54 and Studio XS in branding litigation and advised nine of the twelve largest resorts in Las Vegas on branding strategy.
Mark has been a member of the adjunct faculty of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas for over twenty years. He currently teaches entertainment law, rights of publicity and privacy law, and the law of cyberspace at UNLV’s William S. Boyd School of Law; the business of entertainment at UNLV’s Hotel college; and entertainment and fine arts law at the College of Fine and Performing Arts. He is also a co-founder and past president of Las Vegas’s Discovery Children’s Museum. Mark is one of the Founding Members of the Emerging Artists in Talent and Music Festival (EATM), was Chairman of the Nevada Entertainment Development Corporation and the CineVegas Film Festival. He is past Chair of the Board for the National Judicial College that trains approximately 10,000 judges per year from across the United States and from around the world. Mark is teaching Entertainment & Media Law for Lewis & Clark Law School in 2020.
Mark earned his BA in political science from UNLV (1974). He graduated with a JD from Lewis & Clark Law School (1979), where he is Chairman of the Board of Visitors.