The VIRGINIA SPORTS AND ENTERTAINMENT LAW JOURNAL
and the VIRGINIA SPORTS LAW SOCIETY Present
university of
VS CHirginia
OOL OF LAW
WELCOME
On behalf of the Virginia Sports
& Entertainment Law Journal, I
would like to welcome you to “The
State of Sports Law,” an academic
symposium on the current environment of the sports law field. We
are honored to have an esteemed
group of panelists who have taken
time out of their busy schedules to
discuss the most recent developments in an important area of law.
Additionally, we are very grateful
to our keynote speaker, DeMaurice
Smith, executive director of the
NFL Players Association, for
offering his valuable insight into
the negotiations surrounding the
new 10-year collective bargaining
agreement with the league.
We would like to thank the cosponsor of this event, the Virginia
Sports Law Society, as well as the
sponsor of the breakfast, the
JD/MBA Society. Finally, I would
like to extend my utmost gratitude
to Stacy Chung, Laura Haskins,
Megan Kayo, Caroline Ryon and
Kathryn Young, without whom
this symposium never would have
happened. I hope that everyone
thoroughly enjoys this event.
Sincerely,
Lindsey Yeargin
Editor-in-Chief
SCHEDULE
8-8:45 A.M.
1-2 P.M.
CHECK-IN AND
CONTINENTAL
BREAKFAST
KEYNOTE ADDRESS
DeMaurice Smith ’89
Sponsored by the JD/MBA Society
8:45-9 A.M.
OPENING REMARKS
9-10:20 A.M.
NCAA CONFERENCE
REALIGNMENT
Christian Dennie, Attorney, Barlow Garsek &
Simon
Mark Levinstein, Partner, Williams & Connolly
Michael McCann ’02, Professor and Director
of the Sports Law Institute, Vermont Law
School
Bernadette McGlade, Commissioner,
Atlantic 10 Conference
Moderator
J. Gordon Hylton ’77, Professor of Law,
Marquette University Law School;
Visiting Professor of Law, University of
Virginia School of Law
10:30-11:50 A.M.
LEGAL IMPLICATIONS OF
FINANCIAL DISTRESS IN
PROFESSIONAL SPORTS
Mark Levinstein, Partner, Williams & Connolly
Michael McCann ’02, Professor of Law and
Director of the Sports Law Institute, Vermont
Law School
Tom Ostertag ’81, Senior Vice President and
General Counsel, Major League Baseball
Moderator
J. Gordon Hylton ’77, Professor of Law,
Marquette University Law School;
Visiting Professor of Law, University of
Virginia School of Law
Executive Director, National Football League
Players Association
2:10-3:30 P.M.
AMATEURISM AND THE
STUDENT ATHLETE
Christian Dennie, Attorney, Barlow Garsek &
Simon
Roscoe Conklin Howard Jr. ’77,
Partner, Andrews Kurth; Member NCAA
Division I Committee on Infractions
J. Gordon Hylton ’77, Professor of Law,
Marquette University Law School;
Visiting Professor of Law, University of
Virginia School of Law
Alan Milstein, Shareholder and
Co-Managing Shareholder; Member,
Executive Committee, Sherman
Silverstein
Rob Slavis, Assistant Athletic Director,
University of Virginia
Moderator
Michael McCann ’02, Professor of Law and
Director of the Sports Law Institute, Vermont
Law School
3:40-5 P.M.
SPORTS LAW ANALYTICS
Robert Forbes ’07, Associate, Proskauer
Ryan Rodenberg, Professor, Department of
Sport Management, Florida State University
Bryan Stroh ’02, Vice President and General
Counsel, Pittsburgh Pirates
Kelly Wilson, Assistant Counsel,
Under Armour
Moderator
Thomas Nachbar, Professor of Law,
University of Virginia School of Law
KEYNOTE SPEAKER
DEMAURICE
F. SMITH ’89
Executive Director, National Football
League Players Association
DeMaurice Smith was elected unanimously
to his post as executive director of the NFL
Players Association by a board of active
player representatives on March 16, 2009. In
2011 Smith led the NFL players through a 134day lockout by the National Football League,
culminating in a 10-year collective bargaining
agreement.
Prior to his election, he was a trial lawyer
and litigation partner in the Washington,
D.C., offices of the law firms Patton Boggs
and Latham & Watkins. In private practice,
he represented Fortune 500 companies in
criminal and complex civil cases, compliance
matters and internal investigations. He has
argued numerous cases before the U.S. Court
of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
and the District of Columbia Court of Appeals.
Smith previously served as counsel to then-Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder in the U.S.
Department of Justice before entering private practice. His duties revolved around national
security issues, congressional relations, and DOJ budget and finance allocation.
For 10 years he served in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, where he
held senior positions in the Violent Crime and Transnational and Major Crime sections. He prosecuted more than 80 jury trials and handled some of the most significant homicide, narcotics
and white collar criminal investigations in the history of that office.
Smith is a fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers, has served on the Board of Governors of the D.C. Bar Association, and is the former president of the Assistant United States
Attorney’s Association. He is also a member of the Board of Advisors for the Office for Access
and Advancement for Public Black Universities of the Association of Public and Land Grant
Universities. He is a recipient of the Attorney General’s Award, the John Evans Trial Advocacy
Award from the United States Attorney’s Association, and the 2010 Cedarville College Alumnus
of the Year Award.
Smith is a graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law and received his bachelor’s
degree in political science from Cedarville University, a Christian college in Ohio. He continues
to teach at the National Trial Advocacy Institute at the University of Virginia.
PARTICIPANTS
CHRISTIAN DENNIE
ROBERT D. FORBES
Attorney, Barlow Garsek & Simon
Associate, Proskauer
Christian Dennie focuses
on commercial matters and
sports law, including issues
related to intercollegiate
athletics, league governance
and collective bargaining. He
has served clients across the state of Texas
and nationally in myriad legal disputes and
negotiations. Dennie has tried more than 40
cases before judges, juries and arbitrators.
Prior to joining Barlow Garsek & Simon, he
worked in the athletics department at the
University of Oklahoma and the University
of Missouri. His athletics experience includes
NCAA compliance and investigations, gameday operations, and drafting and negotiating
transactional documents. Since his return
to private practice, Dennie has continued
to work with and advise sports-related
clients, including student athletes, coaches,
conference offices, recruiting services, sports
equipment providers and retailers, sports
unions, and professional sports franchises and
related entities, in litigation, NCAA compliance matters, and negotiating and drafting of
agreements. He has drafted and negotiated
coaches’ contracts, facilities agreements,
sponsorship and marketing agreements, compliance and recruiting manuals, and collective
bargaining agreements.
Dennie is an adjunct professor of law
at Texas Wesleyan School of Law, where he
teaches sports law and a deposition skills
practicum. Prior to returning to private
practice, Dennie also taught sports law at the
University of Missouri School of Law.
Robert D. Forbes is an
associate in the Litigation
Department of Proskauer’s
Los Angeles office. He has
experience in a variety of
complex litigation matters
in both federal and state courts involving
contract, antitrust, copyright, trademark, First
Amendment, defamation, Internet privacy,
director/officer liability and general commercial disputes. As a member of the Sports
Law Group, a significant portion of Forbes’
practice is dedicated to litigating issues and
counseling clients active in the sports business. Forbes has represented Major League
Baseball and the New York Jets in court, as
well as other major corporate clients.
Forbes frequently writes on issues relating to his areas of practice. His articles have
appeared in BNA’s World Intellectual Property
Report, Sports Law Administration & Practice,
IP Frontline, and E-Commerce Law Reports,
and he is a regular contributor to Proskauer’s
Privacy Law Blog.
ROSCOE CONKLIN HOWARD JR.
Partner, Andrews Kurth
Roscoe C. Howard Jr.
specializes in white collar
criminal matters, corporate
compliance and ethics
issues, and complex litigation at Andrews Kurth. He
is a member of the Corporate Compliance
Investigations and Defense and the Antitrust
Litigation practice groups.
Prior to private practice, Howard was
appointed by President George W. Bush to
serve as the U.S. attorney for the District
of Columbia from 2001-04. Before that he
served as a tenured professor at the Univer-
sity of Kansas School of Law, where he taught
from 1994 to 2001. Howard has also twice
served as an associate independent counsel,
and previously held positions as an assistant
U.S. attorney in the District of Columbia,
as well as the Eastern District of Virginia in
both Richmond and Alexandria. As a federal
prosecutor he has handled criminal cases
involving narcotics trafficking, homicides,
fraud and public corruption, as well as dozens
of trials and investigations before the District
of Columbia Superior Court and numerous
grand jury investigations. He has also argued
appeals before the U.S. Court of Appeals for
the Fourth Circuit and served as the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force
coordinator while in Richmond and chief of
the task force that prosecuted cases arising
from a local prison.
Howard served as a staff attorney for
the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of
Competition from 1981 to 1984 and was an
associate in two District of Columbia law
firms after graduating from the University
of Virginia School of Law in 1977. He clerked
for Judge Raymond L. Finch of the Territorial Circuit in St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands,
immediately following law school. Before law
school he attended Brown University, where
he played varsity football.
Howard is a member of the NCAA Division I Committee on Infractions, serves as the
chairman of the U.S.-Canada Fulbright Board
of Directors, is a member of the Washington
Lawyers Committee and the Virginia Bar
Association Jury Task Force, and serves on
the Board of Directors of the Roger Williams
University School of Law. He has authored
numerous articles on criminal law and
procedure and frequently speaks at white collar crime seminars and institutes. Howard was
named one of “Washington’s Top Lawyers” by
Washingtonian Magazine in 2004.
J. GORDON HYLTON
Professor of Law, Marquette University Law School;
Visiting Professor of Law, University of Virginia
School of Law
J. Gordon Hylton is a graduate of Oberlin College and
the University of Virginia
Law School. He also holds
a Ph.D. in the history of
American civilization from
Harvard University and formerly clerked for
Justice Albertis S. Harrison and Chief Justice
Lawrence I’Anson of the Virginia Supreme
Court.
Since 1995, Hylton has been a member of
the Marquette Law School faculty. He previously taught at the Chicago-Kent College of
Law of the Illinois Institute of Technology, and
has served as a visiting professor of law at
Washington University, Washington and Lee
University, and the University of Virginia.
He currently serves as a member of the
Diversity Committee of the American Bar
Association’s Section on Legal Education and
Admission to the Bar. He is also past chair of
the Association of American Law School’s
Sections on Legal History and Sports Law
and is the Marquette representative to the
American Society of Comparative Law and
the International Association of Law Schools.
Hylton is a past recipient of the Gihardi
Award for Excellence in Teaching and the
Teaching Award presented by the Marquette
Chapter of Phi Delta Phi Legal Fraternity. Earlier in his career he was named professor of
the year at the Chicago-Kent Law School on
three occasions, and was twice the recipient
of the Illinois Institute of Technology’s award
for superior teaching. He is also the only visiting professor to be named professor of the
year at Washington University Law School.
His current research interests focus on the
history of the legal profession, the history of
civil rights and the legal history of American
sports.
MARK LEVINSTEIN
MICHAEL MCCANN
Partner, Williams & Connolly
Professor of Law; Director, Sports Law Institute,
Vermont Law School
Mark Levinstein is a partner
at Williams & Connolly and
a practicing trial lawyer who
has been one of the leaders
of the law firm’s antitrust
and business litigation practices since the mid-1980s. Levinstein also has
a varied sports law practice, which includes
representing businesses and individuals in
sports litigation, arbitration, negotiation and
business planning. Levinstein’s sports practice
has involved controversy work — representing
sports clients in anticipation of and in arbitration, litigation and trial concerning sportsrelated disputes. However, he has also helped
plan and form sports-related businesses, and
negotiated many sports-related agreements.
He has counseled clients on issues involving
owning and managing professional sports
leagues, including the financing and leasing
of professional sports stadia and arenas.
Levinstein has been an adjunct professor
in antitrust and sports law at the Columbus
School of Law at Catholic University, the
George Washington University Law School
and most recently at the Georgetown University Law Center, and he is the co-author of a
leading sports law casebook.
He was identified as one of “Washington’s
Top Lawyers” by Washingtonian magazine
(since 2006). In more than 28 years at the
law firm, he has handled litigation at the
trial and appellate levels, representing both
plaintiffs and defendants in state and federal
courts.
Michael McCann has received
international recognition for
his expertise in sports law,
media and broadcasting law,
labor law and antitrust.
In addition to serving as
a professor at Vermont Law School, where he
directs the Sports Law Institute, McCann is the
on-air legal analyst for NBA TV, a legal analyst
for Sports Illustrated and the “Sports Law”
columnist on CNNSI. He has been honored by
The American Lawyer, the Newhouse School
of Public Communications and the Society for
Social Psychology and Personality (2011 Media
Prize) for excellence in journalism.
McCann also teaches a sports law and
analytics reading group at Yale Law School,
the first such course to be offered at a law
school. McCann co-founded the Harvard Law
School Project on Law and Mind Sciences
and is the Distinguished Visiting Hall of Fame
Professor of Law at Mississippi College School
of Law. He has authored 17 law review articles
in such publications as the Yale Law Journal,
Boston College Law Review, Wisconsin Law
Review and the Virginia Sports and Entertainment Law Journal.
Prior to becoming a law professor,
McCann served as counsel to college football
star Maurice Clarett in his lawsuit against the
National Football League and its age-eligibility rule. He also served as a visiting researcher
at Harvard Law School and legal counsel to
U.S. Congressman Marty Meehan.
McCann has been frequently interviewed
on television programs on CBS, HBO, CNN,
Fox and CNBC. While a student at the University of Virginia School of Law, McCann served
as editor-in-chief of the Virginia Sports &
Entertainment Law Journal.
BERNADETTE V. MCGLADE
Commissioner, Atlantic 10 Conference
Following a notable
career as a student athlete,
Bernadette V. McGlade has
spent nearly 30 years as a
collegiate coach and athletics administrator.
Since she assumed her post as the fifth
full-time commissioner of the Atlantic 10
Conference in 2008, McGlade has aimed
to improve the student-athlete experience
and has worked with television partners to
increase the number of Atlantic 10 games
aired.
She currently serves on the NCAA Men’s
Basketball Officiating Board of Directors and
the NCAA Honors Committee. She also is the
Division I vice president for the Collegiate
Commissioners Association. McGlade spent
11 years at the Atlantic Coast Conference
prior to her arrival at the A-10, including the
last nine as associate commissioner. During
that period, she also participated on the
eight-person NCAA Television Negotiating
Committee, a group that secured what was,
at the time, the largest television contract
for any sporting event, totaling $6.2 billion
in revenue from CBS for the NCAA men’s
basketball championship. Additionally, the
group secured the current ESPN contract for
the NCAA women’s basketball championship
and numerous additional National Championships’ rights, in excess of $162 million.
Prior to arriving at the ACC, McGlade
served for 17 years at the Georgia Institute
of Technology, initially as the first female
head coach for women’s basketball there. By
1983, McGlade assumed the responsibilities
of coordinating women’s sports at Georgia
Tech, where she helped elevate several sports
to the varsity level. Throughout the 1990s she
expanded her responsibilities and experience
by serving as the tournament director for
the 1993 NCAA Women’s Final Four, which
secured the first pre-sellout in the history of
the event. Additionally, she served for a year
and a half as the 1996 Olympic Games liaison
for the Georgia Tech Athletic Association,
developing and coordinating the association’s
strategic plan.
In 2000, McGlade was recognized as the
WBCA National Administrator of the Year,
and was inducted into the Georgia Tech
Athletic Association Hall of Fame and the
South Jersey Women’s Basketball Hall of
Fame. McGlade earned both her undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University
of North Carolina.
ALAN MILSTEIN
Shareholder and Co-Managing Shareholder;
Member, Executive Committee, Sherman Silverstein
Alan C. Milstein is a nationally recognized litigator in
the areas of sports law and
bioethics. He graduated
with honors in 1983 from
Temple University School of
Law, where he was a member of the Board of
Editors of the Temple University Law Review.
Milstein has represented athletes seeking to
enter professional leagues, players in team
negotiations, and athletes in lawsuits against
sports agents. He has lectured extensively on
bioethics in clinical trials and on sports law.
Milstein has been invited to make presentations on sports law at Harvard University
Business School, the Wharton School of the
University of Pennsylvania, Yale Law School,
Syracuse University School of Law, Temple
Law School, the Mississippi College of Law,
the Boston College School of Law, New York
Law School and St. John’s University School
of Law.
Milstein has also appeared as a guest
on “The James Brown Radio Show,” HBO’s
“NFL Week with Bob Costas,” ESPN’s “Sports
Center” and “Cold Pizza,” and has been
profiled in the New York Times, Washington
Post, Philadelphia Inquirer, Chronicle of
Higher Education, American Lawyer and
other publications.
THOMAS B. NACHBAR
Professor of Law, University of Virginia School
of Law; Senior Fellow, Center for National Security
Law
After earning his undergraduate degree in history and
economics, Tom Nachbar
spent five years as a systems
analyst, working for both
Andersen Consulting and
Hughes Space and Communications before
entering law school, where he served on the
University of Chicago Law Review and was
elected to the Order of the Coif. After graduation, he clerked for Judge Frank H. Easterbrook of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the
Seventh Circuit and later practiced with what
is now Mayer Brown in Chicago as a member
of the firm’s appellate litigation, information
technology, and intellectual property practice
groups. Nachbar’s previous research has addressed how the availability of new technologies alters conceptions of regulation; his
current work is on the relationship between
public and private regulation of markets. He
is a co-author (with Glen Robinson) of the
casebook “Communications Regulation.”
In addition to his work on regulation,
Nachbar works extensively in the national
security arena, focusing on detention law
and policy and the role of legal institutions in
counterinsurgency and stability operations.
He is a judge advocate in the U.S. Army
Reserve, where, among other assignments, he
was a principal editor and contributor for the
first three editions of “The Rule of Law Handbook: A Practitioners’ Guide” (from 2007-09).
He is currently assigned to the Office of the
Judge Advocate General, International and
Operational Law Division. In addition to his
military service, he is a civilian senior adviser
for the U.S. Department of Defense, Office of
Rule of Law and Detainee Policy, and a senior
fellow at the University of Virginia’s Center
for National Security Law.
TOM OSTERTAG
Senior Vice President and General Counsel,
Major League Baseball
Tom Ostertag joined Major
League Baseball in 1985. He
held various positions in both
the Commissioner’s Office
and Major League Baseball
Properties until he was named
general counsel in the Commissioner’s Office
in 1990. He was appointed senior vice president and general counsel, his current position, in 2000. Ostertag is responsible for legal
work in the Commissioner’s Office, including
that relating to broadcasting, club ownership
matters and litigation. He is also an officer of
Baseball Assistance Team, a charity of former
players that helps former players and others
in the baseball family in need. He joined
Major League Baseball from the New York
law firm of what is now Sidley Austin, where
he had been since 1981. Ostertag received his
law degree from the University of Virginia
School of Law in 1981 and his undergraduate
degree from Dartmouth College in 1978. Additionally, Ostertag authored an article titled
“Baseball’s Antitrust Exemption: Its History
and Continuing Importance” for the Virginia
Sports & Entertainment Law Journal in 2004.
DISTINGUISHED PANELRYAN RODENBERG
BRYAN STROH
Professor, Department of Sports Management,
Florida State University
Vice President and General Counsel,
Pittsburgh Pirates
Ryan Rodenberg is an assistant professor in the Department of Sport Management
at Florida State University.
Prior to entering academia,
he served as associate
general counsel at the sports marketing firm Octagon in Washington, D.C. He earned his law
degree from the University of Washington
in 2000 and his Ph.D. from Indiana University in 2009. He has published a number of
academic articles in both law reviews and
peer-reviewed journals
Bryan Stroh provides legal
counsel to the Pittsburgh
Pirates club on both baseball
and business-related issues.
Within the club’s baseball
operations, Stroh handles a
variety of player contract negotiations and is
responsible for the club’s salary arbitration
cases. Stroh also manages all contract, labor
and employment, insurance and intellectual
property issues, and contributes to various
strategic and risk-management matters within
the club’s business operations.
Prior to joining the Pirates, Stroh spent
nine years with Katten Muchin Rosenman
in Chicago, where he was a partner with a
practice focused on sports-related issues,
commercial litigation and white collar criminal
defense. In particular, Stroh represented the
Chicago White Sox and Cleveland Indians on
several matters, including salary arbitration.
Other sports teams Stroh represented include
the Oakland Athletics, the Chicago Bulls, and
the Chicago Fire and Philadelphia Union of
Major League Soccer.
Stroh earned his law degree from the
University of Virginia and majored in politics
at Princeton, where he was a pitcher for the
baseball team.
ROB SLAVIS
Assistant Athletics Director, University of Virginia
Rob Slavis was named
assistant athletics director
for compliance at Virginia
after serving as the assistant athletics director for
compliance at Georgia State
University since 2004.
At Virginia, Slavis is responsible for
compliance with all NCAA, Atlantic Coast
Conference and University rules and regulations, concentrating in the areas of education
and interpretation. He also assists with other
duties that support the overall objectives of
the compliance program.
Prior to assuming his position at Georgia
State, Slavis was the assistant director of
compliance at Jacksonville University from
2001-04. He earned his bachelor’s degree in
political science from Union College in 1996
and his master’s degree in physical education
from Florida State in 2000.
THANK YOU
KELLY WILSON
Assistant Counsel, Under Armour
Kelly Wilson received a B.A.
from Bucknell University in
2000, where she was a fouryear varsity letter winner
and captain in swimming
and played water polo. She
graduated from the George Washington
University School of Law in 2005 and worked
for six years in-house at Octagon, a global
athlete representation, event management
and sports marketing company. She now
works in-house at Under Armour, where she
drafts and negotiates sports marketing and
brand-related agreements.
We would like to thank our panelists,
moderators and DeMaurice Smith for
participating.
Special thanks goes to Dean Paul
Mahoney, Dean Martha Ballenger, Jason
Dugas, Laura Monroe, Diddy Morris,
Jason Wu Trujillo and the Law School’s
Communications Office.
Thank you also to our donors, the
JD/MBA Society and BarBri.
PROGRAM ORGANIZERS
Stacy Chung
Laura Haskins
Megan Kayo
Caroline Ryon
Kathryn Young
SPONSORED BY