Joseph Kibre is a 1975 Order of the Coif graduate of the UCLA School of Law. He received his B.A. Degree from UC Berkeley with distinction in general scholarship and an honors program in political science with distinction. Joe was an NDEA Graduate Fellow at UCLA, where he received M.A. and C.Phil. Degrees in European and American history before attending law school. Joe began the private practice of law in Los Angeles in 1975. He is a member of the bars of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and the United States District Courts for the Central and Eastern Districts of California.
Since 1985, Joe’s practice has been devoted to family law, and entertainment and business litigation. Joe has handled complex and high profile cases, including the successful defense of prominent family law attorney Marvin Mitchelson against a civil rape action brought by one of his former clients and made public on CBS’ 60 Minutes, Sondra Locke’s action against Clint Eastwood for “palimony” and infliction of emotional distress, and an action brought by Mohamed Al Fayed against fraudsters who attempted to sell him forged government documents concerning the deaths of Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed. Joe has handled hundreds of family law cases, including matters for actors, directors, producers and other prominent people, including Sandra Bullock, Dick Wolf (Law & Order), Joss Whedon (Avengers, Buffy) Bruce Helford (Drew Carey, George Lopez), former California State Controller Kathleen Connell, pianist/composer George Winston, actors Pat Morita and Julie Brown, and the spouses of Joe Eszterhas, James Brolin, Christopher Lloyd, and Ronald Meyer (one of the founders of Creative Artists Agency), among others. (All of the foregoing were cases filed in courts as a matter of public record; the names of clients in matters in which there was no such public filing, including numerous premarital agreements, are not listed in order to protect their privacy.)
Joe has also handled sophisticated and often high-profile business litigation matters for Sony Music and such “mini-major” independent motion picture production companies as Carolco Pictures Inc., Cinergi Pictures Inc., C-2 Pictures LLC, New Regency Productions, Inc. and Hyde Park Entertainment, including litigation on major motion pictures such as L.A. Confidential, Terminator 2, Rambo 3, Evita and others. Joe has also handled numerous appeals, including one resulting in a published opinion reversing a trial court, Lefton v. Kessler, 141 Cal. App. 3d 94; 190 Cal. Rptr. 109 (1983). He is rated AV by Martindale Hubbell.
