Biglaw, Law Shucks

This Week in Biglaw: 06.13.10

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Ed. note: Law Shucks focuses on life in, and after, BigLaw, including by tracking layoffs, bonuses, and laterals. Above the Law is pleased to bring you this weekly column, which analyzes news at the world’s top law firms.

In honor of the commencement of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, we’re going with a sports-themed edition for this week.

But when lawyers say they’re "Masters of the Game," they’re not talking about an athletic endeavor.

Despite the paucity of accomplishments on the field (although Business Insider did pull together a list of lawyer Olympians a few months ago), lawyers, especially big-firm lawyers, have played critical off-field roles in sports. Lawyers also like to set up World Cup office parties and attend other sporting events.

For example, there would be no free agency without BigLaw (Weil Gotshal and Paul Weiss in particular). That has given rise to sports agents, many of whom are lawyers, and players’ associations, the NFL’s version of which is now run by a Patton Boggs lawyer.

More-recently, Covington & Burling and Jones Day went head-to-head at the highest legal playing field. Jones Day won in a 9-0 rout (much to the surprise of FantasySCOTUS players) when the Supreme Court struck down the NFL’s antitrust exemption and remanded for further hearings on apparel licensing, which could redistribute hundreds of millions in fees.

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Even on the deal side, nothing gets done without BigLaw. Newly merged Hogan Lovells represented Russian gazillionaire Mikhail Prokhorov on his investment in the New Jersey Nets from a seller represented by Simpson Thacher, and the list goes on from there.

That’s all history.

After the jump, we take a look at the surprising amount of sports-related work BigLaw does in just one week.

Fresh off that beating, the NFL is thick in the middle of a suit with the aforementioned NFLPA. Covington is once again taking the pitch, this time against Dewey & LeBeouf for the players’ association (which makes us wonder when DeMaurice Smith is going to send some work back to his old firm). The players are fighting over the league’s television contracts, which will invariably require the networks to bring in their own outside counsel.

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The collective-bargaining agreement renegotiation is going on right now, too. There, the league is using Proskauer Rose and the NFLPA has Weil Gotshal.

Aside from the World Cup, the other big news in sports this week is the impending reshuffling of athletic conferences. A Polsinelli Shughart lawyer, Kevin Sweeney, is counsel to the apparently crumbling Big 12 Conference, and lawyers from Mayer Brown, Sonnenschein and other top firms will be involved.

Cycling more your thing?

Floyd Landis used to be represented by Gibson Dunn, but that ended around the same time he stopped claiming he was innocent. Now he’s a Wilson Sonsini client. He’s keeping them on retainer in case Lance Armstrong or someone else decides to sue for defamation.

Sports and BigLaw even collided in one of the least-likely places imaginable. Carl Icahn’s hostile takeover bid for Lions Gate studios. Icahn, who is represented by Canada’s Osler Hoskins & Harcourt, has designated the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban as one of the directors he would appoint. Lions Gate has called up the biggest hitters in the takeover-defense world: Wachtell Lipton. James Cole leads the defense.

Short edition this week due to all the sports-related distractions on television (and just think, next week we get the US Open, too!).

Unfortunately, in the conclusion of the article on Law Shucks, we have some layoff news to report (even though it’s not tracker-eligible).

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