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| Darrell D. Miller |
"They ran in and said, 'You're a meme!'" Miller recalled with a laugh. "I was like, 'What are you talking about? What is a meme?'"
As the founding chair of Fox Rothschild's entertainment and sports law department, Miller has gotten used to working with clients in the spotlight. But after a client name-dropped him in a viral video Tuesday, he became a part of pop culture for the first time.
"This has been the most hilarious thing that I've ever experienced," Miller told Law360 Pulse. "And no, this is never something that I've been part of in all my 30 years of practice."
It all began when Miller's client, Bravo reality star Lala Kent, received a letter this week from an attorney representing a fellow "Vanderpump Rules" castmate as a cheating scandal embroiled the show.
Counsel for Kent's co-star Raquel Leviss sent the letter to castmates requesting they delete and not distribute a lewd recording of her that reportedly led to the breakup of longtime reality couple Tom Sandoval and Ariana Madix.
So Kent took to Instagram to chastise Leviss for contacting her instead of Miller directly.
"Raquel, tell your little Mickey Mouse lawyer that if he has stuff to send over, he can send things to my lawyer, same with the rest of my friends and cast, all right?" Kent said in the video posted to her Instagram stories on Tuesday.
"I've never in my life had a lawyer contact me in my personal email, all right?" Kent continued. "... You have something to send over, you can send it to my lawyer. That's why we HAVE counsel, 'kay? I don't want to deal. I have a life going on. I got a little baby to take care of. I don't want to see that in the morning. I don't want to see that ever."
Kent ended the rant with a flourish: "Send it to Darrell!"
Since then, "Send it to Darrell" has become something of a rallying cry for Bravo fans. The phrase has been circulated across social media, parodied on TikTok and was the subject of several Bravo memes on Instagram, including one from a fan who joked he was repeating it "every hour on the hour." Kent quickly capitalized on the catchphrase and began selling her own "Send it to Darrell" hoodies for $50 each plus shipping.
Miller doesn't expect to get a cut of the hoodie sales — he said he supports his clients in their endeavors — but he acknowledged that the clip was free advertising, even if many social media users initially misspelled his name. Of course, notoriety outside the legal community was never Miller's goal.
"I'm a worker bee more than I am trying to be visible in pop culture," he said.
Miller began his legal career in 1990 as an associate in Los Angeles at Lord Bissell & Brook LLP, which has since become part of Locke Lord LLP. He started his own shop in 1996, serving as production counsel on TV and film projects, according to his Fox Rothschild profile. The firm expanded in 2001, becoming Miller & Pliakas LLP.
In 2009, Miller joined Fox Rothschild as a partner. His practice is focused on transactional work for TV and film clients, including brand deals, licensing, promotion, merchandising and contracts with networks and studios.
As unscripted television became more popular, Miller's client base expanded to reality stars like Kent, as well as former "Real Housewives" stars NeNe Leakes and Porsha Williams. And while Miller said he mostly does contract work, he may also act as an informal "general counsel" for clients, connecting them to attorneys in other practices like real estate or trusts and estates.
"That's really my day-to-day — phone calls, deal-making, conversations, crises management," he said. "Adding pop culture on top of that is never a good combination."
A few clients have even asked Miller to make television appearances as their attorney, but he said he's more comfortable behind the scenes.
"At the core of who I am is just a boring guy who's always got my head down," Miller said. "I like to work really, really, really, really hard."
Born and raised in Cincinnati, Miller didn't always want to be an attorney. He studied musical theater, took classical voice lessons and, after graduating from the University of Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, Miller began doing national and international tours, even going to Moscow in the 1980s before the Iron Curtain fell. He then landed a part in the first musical ever taken abroad by the U.S. and the Minnesota Opera Company, the purpose of which was to improve relations between countries.
Performing across India, all through Europe and even Egypt, Miller came back from the tour and decided to go to law school to help realize his dream of becoming a producer. He applied to 12 law schools and got into nine, ultimately attending Georgetown University Law Center.
"My world changed like a Hollywood movie from there," Miller said.
In law school, he became captivated by the "information superhighway" and the opportunities it presented. He began his legal career in civil litigation before deciding he didn't like the adversarial nature of the work, and moved into the entertainment space.
As an entertainment attorney, Miller has worked with the likes of actress Angela Bassett and rapper Ludacris. He said he's gratified to help entertainers see their hard work pay off through deals. And while he doesn't get intimidated by celebrity often, he was star-struck to work with actor Sidney Poitier.
"But I see celebrity every day, I deal with it every day, I know what it looks like behind the curtain," he said. "Right now, it really is a job — a fun job, but ultimately a job."
Miller is still amused by his own newfound celebrity and Kent's seemingly off-the-cuff remark, a sentiment colleagues both within and beyond the firm seem to share.
"They first can't believe it, and then they basically crack up with a smile," Miller said. "That's because clients say 'Send it to my lawyer' all the time, but you don't have the power in many cases to have it take [off] as a viral statement that is part of pop culture."
Lawyers typically would reach out to someone's counsel directly, as opposed to a client, according to Miller.
"But in the unscripted world where these ladies go back and forth, it's not uncommon," he said. "I think they were panicking, trying to cover up something and threaten people not to talk about something that they didn't want public."
Miller noted that the attorney who reached out to Kent never did "send it to Darrell."
"I think that lawyer is terrified," Miller said. "But Darrell is sending something to that lawyer."
--Editing by Alanna Weissman and Marygrace Anderson.
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