JIM BATES

Jim Bates joined Sitrick And Company after serving for 22 years as an editor and reporter at the Los Angeles Times, most recently Deputy Entertainment Editor in the Business section. At Sitrick And Company he has specialized in entertainment, litigation, corporate and strategic issues, working with such clients as The Estate of Michael Jackson, Maguire Investments, the Screen Actors Guild as well as the Greater Los Angeles Zoo Association to secure an 11-4 Los Angeles City Council vote defeating animal rights activist efforts to scuttle the new Elephants of Asia exhibit. As the LA Times banking specialist in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Mr. Bates chronicled the nation’s savings and loan debacle, the creation of the Resolution Trust Corp. and the banking industry upheavals. As an entertainment reporter and editor, he covered virtually every aspect of Hollywood, including breaking with colleague Shawn Hubler the international story of madam Heidi Fleiss. Mr. Bates also wrote a business humor column for the newspaper, an awards season column and provided daily entertainment business updates for radio station KFWB. He was as part of the reporting staff that won Pulitzer Prizes for the paper’s coverage of the Los Angeles riots and the Northridge earthquake. He has received awards from the Associated Press Sports Editors, the California Newspaper Publishers Assn. and the Greater Los Angeles Press Club. Bates attended the University of Illinois and the University of California-Irvine, where he earned a bachelor’s in Social Ecology. He has a master’s in journalism from the University of Missouri, and has taken finance and accounting classes at UCLA.