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I'm a 1L at a T14 law school. I've become increasingly interested in the thought of working in the front office for a professional sports team. Does anyone have any experience and/or advice on how to go about doing this? As is probably obvious, I would be interested in legal jobs, or at least jobs that would require me to draw on my legal background. Thanks.

A lot of GMs started out as scouts within the organization and worked their way up the ranks. I think if you wanted to be a general counsel for a team, you'd have to work for their law firm first and make contacts at the team. And have partners go to bat for you if a general counsel spot opens up

One of the career panels at school had a guy who's counsel for a major baseball or football team (I forget which). He said he got the job by busting his ass networking and offering to intern for the league while in law school. That turned into a full-time offer. Probably a unique thing. I think he said they had a team of like 4-5 lawyers.

terps8787 wrote:I'm a 1L at a T14 law school. I've become increasingly interested in the thought of working in the front office for a professional sports team. Does anyone have any experience and/or advice on how to go about doing this? As is probably obvious, I would be interested in legal jobs, or at least jobs that would require me to draw on my legal background. Thanks.

Does your school have a sports class or clinic? At my school we have a sports class, as well as the ability to do a clinical placement of some sort with a local sports team. You should look into it at your school. If not, see if you can create some sort of independent study/externship type program where you can work with a sports team and at least get your foot in the door.

If you want Operations side:

Network your butt off. Do everything you can to get that first team name on your resume. Then kill it there and hope your good name travels to another opportunity. This route requires less grade emphasis and less legal skills.

If you want legal side:

Network your butt off. Get good grades. Get best firm job you can. Keep networking. Cross your fingers that you are on a list when a job opens up and be ready to move in a week.


You need to decide ASAP which path you want. 1L grades may decide for you, but don't wait until this Spring to start networking and sticking your neck out.

See: Howie Roseman (Eagles GM). Did it the way most would have to do it.

paintbynumbers wrote:See: Howie Roseman (Eagles GM). Did it the way most would have to do it.

Sticking with the Eagles... See Aileen Daly for the law firm route.

ZeffKay wrote:If you want Operations side:

Network your butt off. Do everything you can to get that first team name on your resume. Then kill it there and hope your good name travels to another opportunity. This route requires less grade emphasis and less legal skills.

If you want legal side:

Network your butt off. Get good grades. Get best firm job you can. Keep networking. Cross your fingers that you are on a list when a job opens up and be ready to move in a week.


You need to decide ASAP which path you want. 1L grades may decide for you, but don't wait until this Spring to start networking and sticking your neck out.

Or do both at the same time. These are not mutually exclusive options.

The NFL advertised legal internships last spring for 1L's. Keep an eye out for that.

Proskauer has a remarkably prominent sports business practice, so definitely bid on them when your OCI rolls around. However, I've been told that they don't particularly care for people who only bid on them for that reason, so find some other practice areas they are in that you can talk up.

Most importantly, though, do what other posters have said: network like crazy and get great grades. If you're good they'll take you—DeMaurice Smith was a former AUSA with no labor relations experience when the NFLPA selected him to head it up, but he's a damn good lawyer so they went with him.

Baker Hostetler does work for the MLB. They actually drew up the American League charter a looong time ago.

I believe Proskauer is the NHL's firm of choice.

I've heard Foley and Lardner is big in the MLB, too.

kalvano wrote:I believe Proskauer is the NHL's firm of choice.

Same for the NBA. The Commissioners of the NBA and NHL both used to work there

Basically get a job at Proskauer. They handle tons of sports deals (e.g., Panthers sale, formation of BigEast, media deals for pac-12, etc. etc.) I'm not in the industry, but from what I've heard and seen regarding sport's deals, they're usually involved.

sopranorleone wrote:

kalvano wrote:I believe Proskauer is the NHL's firm of choice.

Same for the NBA. The Commissioners of the NBA and NHL both used to work there

FWIW, Adam Silver worked at Cravath.

I have a friend who works for an NHL team. He started out at a firm that provides services for that team, got staffed on a project and got to know people in the org. They all used to play hockey together during the day (he has a photo of him hauling down the GM in front of the net), eventually they hired him.

It will be very difficult if you do not know people in the team. The competition for whatever public jobs they post is insane.

Bumping ancient post -- any luck OP, as you're now presumably mid-level and these leagues have had a lot of postings as of late?

FWIW to future readers, I think Skadden > Proskauer when it comes to NHL's firm of choice. The unintuitive thing is that a lot of these leagues really like antitrust people, so maybe aim for antitrust in particular.