Now that the shock of what happened on the set of the movie “Rust” is wearing off, it’s time to lawyer up over the death of Halyna Hutchins and the shooting of Joel Souza.
Alec Baldwin is represented by former New York City deputy mayor Randy Mastro, a close friend and partner at Gibson Dunn. That famous firm does not handle criminal matters. Mastro is a litigation attorney, which will come in handy when the civil suits start flying. Since Baldwin in an Executive Producer on “Rust,” the odds are there will be lawsuits from everyone including the film’s insurance carrier.
Mastro is a master of negotiating. When he worked for Rudy Guiliani at City Hall it was Mastro who dismantled the Fulton Fish Market in the South Street Seaport, among other hot button issues. He and Alec just appeared together two weeks ago at the Hamptons Film Festival where they are both very involved. They could never have guessed this would be their next mutual project.
What complicates the situation is that the husband of the cinematographer who was killed, Matt Hutchins, is an LA – based entertainment attorney. Last March he joined the prestigious firm Latham & Watkins in mergers and acquisitions. According to his Linked In account, Hutchins– despite graduating from Harvard law School in 2010 — has knocked around the Hollywood law game quite a lot over the last decade. (He was editor in chief of the Harvard Law Journal when he was a student there.) His longest stint was from 2011 to 2015 at Skadden Arps, another top firm.
If Alec needs a criminal defense lawyer, his first choice would probably be Alan Abramson, who’s worked miracles for him before in cases like Baldwin’s skirmish with a photographer outside his Greenwich Village apartment.
As I broke here on Saturday, Baldwin spoke at the private memorial service for Halyna Hutchins before returning to New York. It doesn’t seem like “Rust” will resume shooting, and Baldwin has no other movies or TV shows coming up. He will certainly be advised to be extremely low profile until everything is resolved.
