Debra Johnson

Debra Whelan Johnson is a Managing Director with Nigro Karlin Segal & Feldstein, LLP. Debra is responsible for providing business and financial management services to recording artists, film, television, and music producers. She also advises on state, federal and international entertainment tax matters. Debra participates heavily in the negotiation of music publishing, touring, and endorsement and merchandising contracts. She also represents film financiers and producers in the financing and production of feature films and home videos.



Debra’s professional career inside academia as professor at Whittier Law School, where she currently is a Distinguished Senior Professor of Law, includes teaching a variety of tax courses, as well as entertainment business planning and film finance. Her legal scholarship has included publications in, among others, the California Tax Lawyer, Los Angeles Daily Journal, Indiana Law Review, University of San Francisco Law Review, Journal of Limited Liability Companies and Notre Dame Law Review.


From San Diego, Debra was also an Associate in the tax department at Luce Forward Hamilton and Scripps, and served as the Director of the Graduate Tax Program at the University of San Diego.