Most lawyers grow up wanting to play with the big boys in the SEC. No, I don’t mean the Securities and Exchange Commission. Nerds. I’m talking about the real SEC, The Southeastern Conference. Football, baby. Or, as they say around those parts, “FOOTBAW!”
Most lawyers never had the athletic talents to compete in the SEC, but they can still fulfill their dreams of having Saturdays that actually mean something by applying to be the general counsel at one of these schools.
There’s an opening.
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The University of Mississippi (Ole Miss), has parted ways with it’s former general counsel Lee Tyner. Now, you might think that a major academic institution could have any number of reasons for splitting up with its GC, but the problem is football. There is only football.
In Ole Miss’s case, the school was slapped with NCAA sanctions following the Hugh Freeze scandal. Freeze was the coach of the Rebels (of course Ole Miss glamorizes the Confederacy, no, it’s not as problematic as the “Redskins”).
If you don’t know about Hugh Freeze, you either don’t watch college football, or aren’t a prostitute in need of high end clients. This Deadspin headline pretty neatly sums it up:
Hugh Freeze Called A Dozen Escort Services From His Ole Miss Phone
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Apparently, firing lawyers is a thing schools do when their athletic departments get into trouble. From Corporate Counsel:
In September 2017, the NCAA found that Rutgers University had failed to properly monitor its football program resulting in violations. The school has had a series of in-house legal chiefs…
The University of North Carolina also shook up its GC office during a recently resolved NCAA investigation of an academic scandal at the school that involved athletes. In 2011, a North Carolina newspaper reported on a suspicious “paper” course that many athletes were taking.
If I may dislodge my tongue from my cheek for a moment: this is FREAKING RIDICULOUS. Universities have MAJOR legal exposure over a host of on-campus issues. Universities need to make sure that their students aren’t getting sexually harassed by their professors. They need policies that promote diversity in the faculty. They need to create a safe environment for the LGBT community. They need to protect free speech, while stamping out hate speech. And what’s getting GCs fired is… FOOTBALL?
The same SICK culture that makes the ol’ ball coach the highest paid government employee in ALMOST EVERY STATE is the one that tells you to fire your general counsel if said coach violates arcane NCAA rules designed to keep college players in bondage. How is it that an institution of higher learning can literally find no other reason to worry about its legal positioning than SPORTS?
Is being the lawyer for Ole Miss a good job? I don’t know. Matt Corral looks like a good QB1 who committed to the school. If he can throw an out route, that’s good job security for the school’s next general counsel.
Ole Miss Latest School to Seek New GC After NCAA Probe [Corporate Counsel]
Elie Mystal is the Executive Editor of Above the Law and the Legal Editor for More Perfect. He can be reached @ElieNYC on Twitter, or at [email protected]. He will resist.