Summary: Everyone wants to practice sports law when they enter law school, just like everyone wants to be a rock star as a kid but the reality of the specialty is that it is much harder to get into completely.
Professional athletes have amazing talents that need to be protected. Many law students starting out imagine being a lawyer to an athlete or organization as a glamorous job. Entertainment and sports law are commonly the two most popular specialties for students that are just starting out.
Sports law requires more than many realize. You may be representing a team, athlete, or event that has a wide array of needs. The more glamorous positions such as in counsel for a professional team are harder to come by as well. The way to get into the field can also vary.
One way to get started in the sports field is by representing an event. Quite often it takes the hobby or interest on top of previous work of an attorney at a law firm to garner attention from an organization. For example, the Breeders Cup chose Hughes and Luce to represent their annual series of races because they had an attorney that was heavily connected to horse racing and had already worked other high-profile sports cases.
Another way for a firm or attorney to enter the field of sports law is to start as outside counsel. This could begin with having a client that purchases a sports team. With that purchase will come a lot of new circumstances that your client will need to be handled such as bankruptcy law, immigration law, and franchise law.
There are several other ways to be involved in sports law. Stadiums may need representation for real estate and commercial litigation. An obvious way is to get hired as the in-house counsel by a team. There are also classes you can take while in law school to give you more expertise in the field, like a trademark course.
Source: https://www.lawcrossing.com/article/377/Sports-Law/
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