Thomas J. Kliebhan

Senior Counsel

  • Office Contact Info
  • Biography

    Thomas Kliebhan is Senior Counsel in the Chicago office of GRSM. His practice includes Entertainment Law and other mass tort litigation. He includes Grammy award winning artists, managers, producers, record labels, and models among his clients and counsels them on a variety of issues in the entertainment industry, including management agreements, producer agreements, recording agreements, contract negotiation, trademark work, and business formation.

    Thomas is an associate member of the Lawyers For The Creative Arts, where he sits on their associate board as the Vice President and Social Media Chair. Through the LCA, he provides pro bono legal services to clients in the Chicago arts and entertainment world. He is also the associate editor of the American Bar Association Entertainment and Sports Lawyer Journal and is a member of the Recording Academy’s Chicago Chapter.

    Prior to law school, Thomas interned at a mid-size independent record label and worked extensively as a freelance music journalist. His writing has been published in the Chicago Reader, Noisey, Consequence of Sound, The Outline, A.V. Club, Vinyl Me Please, and others. He has also contributed to the Illinois State Bar Association Intellectual Property Section Newsletter and the American Bar Association Entertainment and Sports Lawyer Journal.

    Admissions

    • Illinois
    • U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois 

    Memberships

    • Illinois State Bar Association 
    • Chicago Bar Association
    • Lawyers for the Creative Arts
    • Women's Bar Association of Illinois
       
  • Practice Areas
  • Publications & Presentations

    Publications

    • Co-Author, Live Nation May Shake It Off In A Long Game With The DOJ, Law360, June 2024
    • American beer giants Anheuser-Busch and MillerCoors clash over Super Bowl advertisements and corn syrup usage, Illinois State Bar Association Intellectual PropertySection Newsletter, Vol 58, No. 4, June 2019
    • America Loves K-Pop. What About K-Rock?, The Outline, Oct. 16, 2018
    • Jam Productions Slams the Door On Contract Negotiations with Unionized Riviera Theatre Stagehands, Chicago Reader, Oct. 21, 2016
    • Never Meant: The Complete Oral History of American Football, Noisey, Feb. 2, 2016

    Presentations

    • "So you’ve been defamed online by an anonymous user…" Chicago Bar Association - Media and Entertainment Law Committee, April 2023
  • Education

    Education

    J.D., DePaul University College of Law, 2019

    • Chancellor's Award for Service
    • CALI Award for Excellence - Trial Advocacy
    • Schiller, DuCanto, & Fleck Family Law Award Scholar
    • Family Law Certificate

    B.A., History & Secondary Education, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2015

    • Dean's List

    Honors

    Best Lawyers in America® distinction in Entertainment and Sports Law (2024-2025), Mass Tort Litigation / Class Actions - Defendants (2024-2025), Personal Injury Litigation - Defendants (2025)

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