REPUBLICAN EMPLOYMENT LAWYERS TAKE NOTICE: With new equal-pay act, will Jennifer Lawrence get paid like Bradley Cooper?

Oscar-winner Jennifer Lawrence was paid 7% of the profit on the 2013 ensemble film “American Hustle,” a big payday for the A-list actress. But Bradley Cooper and two other male co-stars each earned 9%.

That’s the kind of inequity potentially targeted by California’s Fair Pay Act, which is aimed at leveling the compensation field between men and women. The bill, signed by Gov. Jerry Brown this week, applies to businesses statewide but has particular resonance in Hollywood, where women have become increasingly vocal critics of the pay gap.

Indeed, the entertainment industry played a key role in pushing the bill forward. Patricia Arquette raised the issue of pay inequality while accepting the best supporting actress Oscar during this year’s Academy Awards — a moment that the Fair Pay Act’s author, state Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson (D-Santa Barbara), said gave the measure momentum.

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“This will ultimately force production companies, studios, TV networks, talent agencies and management firms to look more closely at their practices to make sure that they are providing equal pay,” said attorney Bryan Freedman, a veteran Hollywood attorney and a founding partner of Freedman Taitelman.

Failure to do so, added attorney Seth Neulight, could expose studios to litigation.

“I think you’ll see studios and their counsel take it more seriously than they have in the past,” said Neulight, a partner in the labor and employment practice group of Nixon Peabody. “There is now another tool in the toolbox for female actors to speak out.”

And another tool in the toolbox for attorneys who want to cause far left Hollywood plenty of well-deserved mischief. (And why not repeal the Hollywood tax cuts in the process, as well?)

(H/T: Virginia Postrel.)