COURT JESTER LEGAL

As a lifelong collector, student, historian, programmer, producer and practitioner of comedy, Howard Leib brings a special knowledge, background and love to representing comedians.

Howard is a student of comedy and owns over 5,000 comedy albums, CDs, 45s and 78s. He has produced comedy CDs, including Bob Newhart’s Grammy nominated Button Down Concert on Nick At Nite Records and “But Seriously, The American Comedy Box,” a 4 CD history of American Recorded Comedy for Rhino Entertainment. He was a consultant to 100 Greatest Stand-Ups of All Time on Comedy Central and a judge in the first ever “Big Laugh-Off” in 1979. He has written about comedy records for Cashbox Magazine and about comedy and the law for The Comic’s Bible, among others.

He works with the National Comedy Center and was a speaker on the 2019 panel on Pacifica vs the FCC, the George Carlin Seven Dirty Words case. You can read Howard’s paper on the prosecution of that case HERE. He is currently working on “The Court Jester, a legal handbook for stand-up comedians, improv comedians, and comedy writers. It will be available as an e-book and on the CourtJesterLegal.com website.

Howard has also worked in comedy radio. He was a writer and programmer for the Dick Cavett Radio Show and has hosted several programs of his own, including “The Laughtrack” on WKCR-FM, New York, “Laughtrack, Jr” on the WNYE, New York, and his current show “No Soap Radio,” on WRFI-FM, Ithaca.

He is a successful attorney, but a failed stand-up comic, having spent time on the New York City audition trail, performing at clubs such as The Comic Strip and Stand-up New York. He serves as a board member of Cinemapolis, Ithaca’s not-for-profit, independent art house cinema and as Chair of the theatre’s Programming Committee, where he is the creator and programmer for the annual Fool’s Flicks Fest, a festival focused on films about the art of comedy.

“We take your legal needs seriously, so you can be funny.” -Howard Leib