ULC Taps Phelps Counsel Andrew Coffman for Study Committee on NIL and Likeness Rights
TUPELO, Miss.—Nov. 13, 2025—Andrew W. Coffman, counsel in Phelps’ Tupelo office, has been named an Observer for the Uniform Law Commission’s (ULC) Protection of Name, Image, and Likeness Study Committee. The group will study the need for and feasibility of one or more uniform acts on issues related to the right of publicity, the right of privacy, and other issues related to name, image, and likeness protections. In addition, it will consider the viability of a broad act dealing with the right of likeness generally as well as more narrowly targeted alternatives, including the right of privacy.
Professor Jennifer Rothman of the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, who is also the committee’s reporter, is leading this effort along with Committee Chair Judge Samuel Thumma from the Arizona Court of Appeals and Vice Chair Brett Koenecke, a partner at May, Adam, Gerdes & Thompson LLP.
Coffman is a litigator, who helps individuals and businesses protect their intellectual property and guides professionals in highly regulated industries through administrative actions. He works with clients in the technology, health care and entertainment sectors. Coffman represents software developers, record labels, recording artists, publishers and songwriters in copyright and other IP suits. He also advocates for health care clients in intellectual property cases and regulatory disputes.
The ULC is a law-improvement organization that exists to research, draft, and promote the enactment of uniform and model laws to maintain uniformity of laws among the states. It ensures that states have access to laws and acts that provide for best practices on topics from abandoned property to wage withholding and unemployment insurance, and most areas of state law in-between. Each model act undergoes at least two years of study by a group of experts and other stakeholders before being presented to the full body of commissioners for final approval.
For more than 130 years, the ULC has provided states with nonpartisan legislation that brings clarity and stability to critical areas of state statutory law. The organization is composed of more than 300 lawyers, judges and law professors appointed by all 50 states as well as the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Since its inception in 1892, the commission has promulgated more than 200 acts, among them bulwarks of state statutory law as the Uniform Commercial Code, the Uniform Probate Code, and the Uniform Partnership Act.
