Producer spends much of his time talking to lawyers.

It's another Friday afternoon nearing 3 p.m. - which means there is a lot for Rick Leed, president of Wind Dancer Production Group, to wrap up before the week ends.

Leed is on the phone, his still-unfinished lunch wilting away on his desk. On a TV screen at the other side of his office are dailies from one of Wind Dancer's upcoming movies, "Company Man." Leer is a producer on the film, but titles don't mean much at a smaller production house like Burbank-based Wind Dancer. "Everybody does everything," he says.

Leed replays a scene two or three times, but never really gets to watch it with undivided attention. His lawyer is on the phone, and there is yet another problem - or maybe an opportunity - in Wind Dancer's ongoing legal war with the Walt Disney Co.

Even that conversation, important as it is, doesn't go uninterrupted. While Leed is talking on the phone, and watching outtakes, Wind Dancer executive Susan Cartsonis comes into his office, wanting to know if he is coming to a meeting, as scheduled. "Matt (Williams) is here," she announces. Williams is one of three principals at the company. Leed cups the phone and says he will come but meanwhile, his secretary is buzzing him and a digital readout behind his desk indicates that someone is waiting for him on the other line.

"Go ahead and start the meeting," he says to Cartsonis.

Leed, dressed in Hush Puppies, khaki pants, a blue work shirt and tie, talks very, very rapidly. He also has a printed schedule of his day in front of him.

The "Disney situation" hangs heavily over the day, as it does on many days. Leed goes back to the conversation with his lawyer.

After he hangs up, Leed says, "Yeah, 30 to 40 percent of my day is spent talking to lawyers. The last five calls were to or from lawyers. Five out of five."

It's a ticklish situation with Disney: Wind Dancer is located on the Disney lot, just off the Golden State (5) Freeway. A huge sound stage, a stone's throw from Leed's office, is where the hugely successful "Home Improvement" series has been shot for eight years, one of network TV's most successful series ever.

"But when we started production on 'Home Improvement,' Disney didn't own ABC," explains Leed. Once Disney bought the network, the accounting changed, and suddenly the show become less profitable, at least by Disney's reckoning. That meant less money for Wind Dancer, and that meant a legal fight.

(A Disney spokesman said the company doesn't comment on pending litigation. In any event, the last show will be shot in April and aired on May 25.)

The meeting with Williams is missed, despite repeated inquiries about Leed's absence. But Leed lurches from his desk, taking his neglected sandwich with him, and runs to a nearby conference room for another meeting with Cartsonis and Melissa Goddard, vice president of Wind Dancer Films.

This session is intended to brief Leed on progress being made in the financing and casting of an upcoming movie, "Harv the Barbarian," a comedy starring many of what Leed calls "the SNL crowd" - comedians who made their name on "Saturday Night Live."

But one lesser name has sent a letter from his lawyer, in hyper-legalistic prose, spelling out that the actor is interested in the project but not making a legal commitment.

Leed looks mildly amused and weary at the prose, but tells Cartsonis to send a letter to simply acknowledge that the actor hasn't made a commitment. "They just want a level of comfort that they won't get into a Kim Basinger situation," Cartsonis observes.

She's referring to an expensive lawsuit lost by Basinger three years ago, in which she was charged with backing out on a verbal commitment to a film.

The rest of the conversation revolves around ways to approach various actors. Simply going to the agent is not the way things are done when you're dealing with top names. Cartsonis frequently mentions that she knows someone who knows an actor in question, and says she will ask that person to approach the actor. After 10 years with Twentieth Century Fox, Cartsonis seems to know a lot of people.

Back in his office, Leed is again on the phone, trying to figure out what type of ad to buy in the Hollywood Reporter. A front cover costs $16,000 to $18,000 in a special edition that the trade magazine will publish honoring "Home Improvement." But a back cover, in full color or metallic finish, can be had for under six grand.

Leed doesn't want to mention too many names in the ad, which will thank cast and crew of "Home Improvement." "If we start mentioning names, then we'll leave somebody out, and somebody's feelings will get hurt," he says, adding, "My vote is for the back cover."

The next call is brief but important. It's from Roberta Bennett, one of the region's leading lawyer-advocates for the rights of gay parents. Leed and his gay partner have adopted two children - a 4-month old boy and 2-year-old girl - but they are worried about religious groups that want to limit such adoptions in' the future. He has contributed to political fund-raisers and is now calling in a few chits. He also wants to help in fund raising for the Family Pride Coalition, a gay parents-rights group. "I think we are pretty good parents," he says of himself and his partner. "This cause is important to me, and I want to give back to the movement some of what I have received."

But work presses on him as soon as he hangs up. Leed is now talking by phone to Pam McCarthy, creative affairs director at Wind Dancer, about an off-Broadway play called "Bubbly Black Girl." Wind Dancer has the rights to turn it into a film.

"I am going to fly out (to New York) Friday, but I can't leave until the afternoon, so I will get there too late for the Friday show; so can I see the show on Saturday?" asks Leed.

Tickets will be set aside, Leed is assured. He wants to see the play himself, to make an evaluation of its promise.

During the afternoon, many other movies and television projects are discussed, in bits and pieces, in phone conversations or with Cartsonis. As the day winds down, Leed is still playing and rewinding "Company Man," starring Sigourney Weaver and Doug McGrath as husband and wife.

The movie is about Cuba, pre-Bay of Pigs, in 1960. The pair are onstage, in a song-and-dance number, trying to elude Castro's henchmen by brazenly assuming the role of musicians at a party. Woody Allen is playing saxophone in the background, underneath a large hat and nearly invisible.

"There is something wrong with this scene," says Leed. "I don't think you will be able to see it, but something is wrong." The phone rings again, another call from the lawyer. He never gets a chance to explain what is wrong.