Minority Fems Form Firm

Washington attorney Jeneba Jalloh Ghatt has opened The Ghatt Law Group with two other partners to form what they bill as the country’s first communications law firm owned by black women.

Ghatt has teamed up with Nicolaine Lazarre, a former corporate law associate with Weil, Gotshal & Manges, and Fatima Fofana, a former Davis Wright Tremaine attorney who will focus on entertainment deals in Los Angeles.

The three women met because of their ties to Washington-area universities. Ghatt was Lazarre’s instructor at Georgetown University Law Center’s Institute for Public Representation, a non-profit law clinic that specializes in telecommunications work.  Fofana and Ghatt were students together at the University of Maryland and the Catholic University of America School of Law.

Ghatt says the firm will assist minority and small business broadcast and communications clients. A major focus of the group will be helping prospective station owners find properties to buy and the capital to buy them.

The film hopes to drum up some biz at the Minority Media & Telecommunications Council's Access to Capital Conference July 18-19 in Washington.

At least two-thirds of the firm has to be there anyway. Fofana will be receiving the Extraordinary Service Award at the group's annual Hall of Fame reception, to be presented by Ghatt.

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.