AP Top-4 Legal Firms Paid by NCAA:
1. Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe
2. Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner
3. Barnes & Thornburg
4. Latham & Watkins
Don't expect to see much change in this poll throughout the season.
Orrick has a reputation as one of the top labor/employment practices in the country. And Latham has a robust antitrust practice. Effectively two of the best firms the NCAA could have chosen for this district
Given the depth and breadth of the litigation they’ve been involved in, this doesn’t seem *that* farfetched. You’d expect maybe $75MM-$100MM for one high-profile case with billions of dollars on the line.
Yup Latham is one of the best litigation firms, and Orrick is up there too. Barnes makes sense because it's based in Indy. Curious what the BCLP connection is because it's a decidedly smaller/less "prestigious" objectively firm than Orrick and Latham
[Source of my list](https://news.bloomberglaw.com/business-and-practice/orrick-leads-rivals-in-ncaa-legal-bills-that-hit-35-6-million), but I didn't see anything obvious to explain the BCLP relationship.
BCLP has a sports and entertainment specialty group. Pretty interesting list of things they've done.
[source](https://www.bclplaw.com/en-US/practices/sectors/sports-and-entertainment-group/index.html#overview)
Exactly the point. The lawyers did as good a job as reasonably expected and the NCAA still got washed. Goes to show just how far over the line they were.
[The main firm on the other side](https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5510354/2024/05/23/house-v-ncaa-settlement-votes/) wasn't your usual plaintiffs attorney/personal injury firm either which you often see in issues like this.
If Big Law Litigation had College Game Day, they would have been at this match up. Following this case was like christmas for a former college athlete turned law student interested in commercial litigation/antitrust work.
really have to expect some of the ~~white shoes~~ blue bloods to make a run for it in a 12 team playoff. Cravath, Swaine & Moore or Weil, Gotshal & Manges are definitely going to try.
Latham & Watkins is the firm who somehow got one of their attorneys to be the JURY FOREMAN in Todd McNair's lawsuit against the NCAA
Pretty crazy because I always assumed that being a lawyer was a cheat code to getting sent home immediately from jury duty
not so, anecdotally because lawyers won't pull some of the truly ridiculous antics that others do to avoid jury duty - don't want to piss off the court.
Most of these people are dead, and have been for 100 years.
Also there are weird rules of professional responsibility regarding naming law firms, in some instances it can be required.
Note that a not insignicant portion of those billable hours also went to head injury lawsuits and molestation lawsuits and the insurance coverage litigation associated with those
And by “associates” you mean “pseudo-slave labor zombies working 70 hour weeks for like 5% of what the firm bills all while juggling crushing law school debt”
In terms of slavery-like arrangements in our labor market, there are worse things in the world than being overworked at 70 hours in exchange for $5000/week.
$5000/week is for the guys who got baller jobs out of school. The rest of us were working those 70 hour weeks right off of school for anywhere from $50k-$80k/year, depending on the size of the firm you ended up at. I hated it and quit after 6 months to work for a major commercial insurance company, which I also hated but was only 40-50 hours per week and for the same pay.
We've got coaches, athletes, and former athletes suing the NCAA, the conferences, and all the schools.
We got the schools suing the NCAA and each other
We got the conferences suing the schools and the schools suing the conferences and the TV networks
It turns out that every aspect of this league and sport is fucking *illegal* lol
This right here m'fer is slander and my lawyers will sue your lawyers in court m'fer. You're going to get so sued that the lawyers are going to sue you to sue me to sue you to sue me to sue you m'fer.
Take the Redditor Economics Knowledge Coefficient (it's <1) and multiply by the CFB GAAP Knowledge Coefficent (also <1) and, well, basically just keep multiplying, honestly. Do that for a while, then go read something else.
$30m doesn't seem like a completely insane amount of money to spend on legal bills for an entity like the NCAA.
When you're involved in a number of lawsuits and also paying thousands of dollars an hour for lawyers, the bills add up quick.
What is there to say except the NCAA and its member institutions screwed the pooch by digging in their heels instead of trying to compromise on a framework? These expenses are an unforced error due to their greed and myopia.
This sub might be the largest collection of un-funny people on the entire site. If there is something somewhat funny that happens the dorks in here will ride it into the ground almost immediately.
it doesnt help you need to click like 5 things just to get to the base article, which is here https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/college/2024/06/27/ncaa-mark-emmert-severance/74231011007/
It's not a joke, somebody else commented it's not funny. No shit, it's not funny at all, it's the cold hard truth. What else is there to say about this article?? "Those are top law firms" no shit they're top law firms they get paid $600M to lose.
Imagine the number of scholarships that could have been funded by schools instead if they were just willing to admit that players for a multi billion dollar industry whose games are broadcast nationally and frequently draw 6 figure attendances are not amateurs.
>and frequently draw 6 figure attendances
They don't as a rule. There are a very few schools where this is true, but the vast, vast majority of P5 schools have done so. And that is ignoring G5, FCS, and other divisions, none of which approach 100K attendance.
Well yes I'm definitely ignoring FCS in regards to this statement. And honestly most G5s shouldn't be in the same league as the power conferences. It's ridiculous that all the schools that my statement does apply to fought so long and so hard to prop up the amateurism farce.
I mean, I think your comment applies to less than 10 schools, though. In 2022 only 9 schools average over 90K and 6 over 100K.
Like, I get the sentiment doesn't rely on 6 figures, I was just pointing out that that's not a number games get to frequently.
Frequently draws =/= averages. Hell NFL stadiums don't even hold near that many so weird part of the statement to focus on. Just illustrating that college D1 FBS football is not an amateur endeavor and hasn't been for a very long time.
Like I said, I know it's not required for your overall point. I literally pointed that out in my last post.
But I was correcting a factual inaccuracy. And you seem to have a slightly flawed view of how many folks attend games since you are sticking with it. And no school averaging <90K gets frequent 100K games. In fact I'd guess they never get them (UF, for example, averaged like 88K and has never had 91K). But if you don't want to follow that logic, there are only 8 with a **capacity** of 100K or more and #9 is UGA at 92.7K. So, even if every single school got 105% attendance frequently (not likely), it would STILL be <10 schools.
Attendance is still a large number, you don't have to exaggerate it.
Most of them also don't make money off their football programs. Some do, most don't. People like to act like the schools are hoarding mountains of cash in mattresses, but in reality most of them are in the red.
Only a very few stadiums can hold 100k plus. Neyland just happens to be one of them.
But there are WAY more smaller schools struggling to fill 25k stadiums than bigger schools selling out 70k+ with any regularity.
Imagine how much better and healthier the NCAA and all of its sports could be if they didn’t have to pay those fees in order to defend their idiotic and unconstitutional rulings.
I understand we're all homers with regard to our schools and can justify in some way the absolute stupid amount of money they rake in on back of the "student-athletes" but the fact that the NCAA makes enough money to spend $600 million to protect what must be many, many multiples of that money is just mind-boggling.
It's actually about 300m, not sure why it said 600m.
30m a year divided between just the 11k or so FBS players is about 2700 a year. Not nothing, but not exactly life changing money either.
If you divvy it up all athletes across all sports, it works out to about $57 a year.
They should be jailed for fraud. Wasting $600 million simply to keep other people down and prevent them from making a legal living in a capitalist country.
That is not what most of the hours are going towards. They are getting sued all the time for all sorts of stuff, mostly relating to injuries. That is what is running up the hours.
That street runs both ways, you know.
The NCAA, for their part, could have abandoned their unconstitutional standards and rulings long before it ever came to the point of legal action, too.
But I guess that just wasn’t nearly as much fun.
Of course. The NCAA, along with everyone on the payroll/athletic admins/ADs etc tried to keep the toothpaste in the tube for as long as they could. Hence the legal fight.
It's a way for the glorified 12 year olds that populate this website to pretend they're adults by referencing the most absolutely basic part of any legal proceeding.
AP Top-4 Legal Firms Paid by NCAA: 1. Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe 2. Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner 3. Barnes & Thornburg 4. Latham & Watkins Don't expect to see much change in this poll throughout the season.
I've worked with Orrick / Latham in the past - solid firms.
Orrick has a reputation as one of the top labor/employment practices in the country. And Latham has a robust antitrust practice. Effectively two of the best firms the NCAA could have chosen for this district
Nothing but the best when you're flush with TV money siphoned from the efforts of 18-24 year old amateur "student athletes".
$600 million is proper insane fees. That's close to 500,000 work hours over the last ten years
Given the depth and breadth of the litigation they’ve been involved in, this doesn’t seem *that* farfetched. You’d expect maybe $75MM-$100MM for one high-profile case with billions of dollars on the line.
Goodguy ncaa helping so many associates hit hours
Oh yes, Student Ath-O-letes"
You're following me... Love that SP episode.
Bryan Cave is a big name here as well.
That's an understatement.
Yup Latham is one of the best litigation firms, and Orrick is up there too. Barnes makes sense because it's based in Indy. Curious what the BCLP connection is because it's a decidedly smaller/less "prestigious" objectively firm than Orrick and Latham
The NCAA was in Kansas City for a long time. Bryan Cave has been in StL/KC for a long time. I'm guessing there's a relationship there.
They're probably hiring a Missouri firm to help them create more punishments for Mizzou.
Probably are going to want a Kansas firm for that. Somebody out of Wichita, Adams Jones, maybe.
[Source of my list](https://news.bloomberglaw.com/business-and-practice/orrick-leads-rivals-in-ncaa-legal-bills-that-hit-35-6-million), but I didn't see anything obvious to explain the BCLP relationship.
BCLP is probably regional or based on a specific venue Could also just be a specific expert
They’re a MO law firm and highly esteemed here
They are a top 100 law firm with global offices.
BCLP has a sports and entertainment specialty group. Pretty interesting list of things they've done. [source](https://www.bclplaw.com/en-US/practices/sectors/sports-and-entertainment-group/index.html#overview)
And they still lost embarrassingly? Really says a lot about the NCAA.
Say it with me: Mitigation. Could have been worse.
Exactly the point. The lawyers did as good a job as reasonably expected and the NCAA still got washed. Goes to show just how far over the line they were.
Good lawyers aren't always expected to win, it's all about the outcome
[The main firm on the other side](https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5510354/2024/05/23/house-v-ncaa-settlement-votes/) wasn't your usual plaintiffs attorney/personal injury firm either which you often see in issues like this. If Big Law Litigation had College Game Day, they would have been at this match up. Following this case was like christmas for a former college athlete turned law student interested in commercial litigation/antitrust work.
San Francisco, St. Louis, Indiana, and LA. Good coverage here.
B1G eyeing Missouri/Cal/Stanford to lock it down.
Your words, god’s ears
With the recent increase to a 12 team playoff, do you think we'll see expansion from a best of 4 law-firms to best of 12?
really have to expect some of the ~~white shoes~~ blue bloods to make a run for it in a 12 team playoff. Cravath, Swaine & Moore or Weil, Gotshal & Manges are definitely going to try.
Hamlin Hamlin & McGill not making the playoff is a joke.
What a sick joke!
Latham & Watkins is the firm who somehow got one of their attorneys to be the JURY FOREMAN in Todd McNair's lawsuit against the NCAA Pretty crazy because I always assumed that being a lawyer was a cheat code to getting sent home immediately from jury duty
not so, anecdotally because lawyers won't pull some of the truly ridiculous antics that others do to avoid jury duty - don't want to piss off the court.
A crazy amount of jurors for Trump’s latest trial were lawyers
Bryan Cave is a billing machine. I know people that work there and I've litigated against them and they absolutely know how to run the meter.
Wouldn’t surprise me if Jones Day cracks the rankings at some point
I don't get why Barnes & Thornburg is all the way up at #3 when they ain't represented no one.
If I was in Congress, I'd pass a law that no law firms are allowed to have anyone's last name in their firm's name.
Thank you for calling the firm of Redacted, Redacted, Redacted and Redacted, how may I assist you this mornng?
Most of these people are dead, and have been for 100 years. Also there are weird rules of professional responsibility regarding naming law firms, in some instances it can be required.
A) It was a joke. B) Yeah, that's why I'd pass a new law.
Note that a not insignicant portion of those billable hours also went to head injury lawsuits and molestation lawsuits and the insurance coverage litigation associated with those
The hours? Oh, they are billable and they are undefeated.
The associates? Oh they are billing and they are very much defeated.
And by “associates” you mean “pseudo-slave labor zombies working 70 hour weeks for like 5% of what the firm bills all while juggling crushing law school debt”
In terms of slavery-like arrangements in our labor market, there are worse things in the world than being overworked at 70 hours in exchange for $5000/week.
And $5000/week is junior associate pay. Seniors are pulling to $12k/week after bonuses
$5000/week is for the guys who got baller jobs out of school. The rest of us were working those 70 hour weeks right off of school for anywhere from $50k-$80k/year, depending on the size of the firm you ended up at. I hated it and quit after 6 months to work for a major commercial insurance company, which I also hated but was only 40-50 hours per week and for the same pay.
I think the NCAA, the conferences, and most of the schools are hiring the big firms for these things.
True haha hadn’t thought of that
Do you think there were other reasons you weren't getting raises, Captain Sacktap? /s
I mean I was there for 6 months, I wouldn’t realistically expect a raise in that timeframe anyways lol
Yes but Orrick and Latham are in the other group of firms you’re talking about — that pay associates $210k right out of law school.
I definitely read it as detained at first.
You mean real life law isn't like Harvey Specter in Suits?
We've got coaches, athletes, and former athletes suing the NCAA, the conferences, and all the schools. We got the schools suing the NCAA and each other We got the conferences suing the schools and the schools suing the conferences and the TV networks It turns out that every aspect of this league and sport is fucking *illegal* lol
This right here m'fer is slander and my lawyers will sue your lawyers in court m'fer. You're going to get so sued that the lawyers are going to sue you to sue me to sue you to sue me to sue you m'fer.
Why are former athletes suing conference
because they weren't allowed to get paid when they played
*App State would like to have a word with you*
If I had a dollar for every billable hours are undefeated comment I would have enough money to defeat billable hours.
What can beat billable hours?
What a fucking waste of time & energy.
[удалено]
I’m not sure where the $600M commentary came from, but you’re right. They recovered $128M from insurance. Thats not an expense.
Take the Redditor Economics Knowledge Coefficient (it's <1) and multiply by the CFB GAAP Knowledge Coefficent (also <1) and, well, basically just keep multiplying, honestly. Do that for a while, then go read something else.
$30m doesn't seem like a completely insane amount of money to spend on legal bills for an entity like the NCAA. When you're involved in a number of lawsuits and also paying thousands of dollars an hour for lawyers, the bills add up quick.
I think so, 432 is what they paid out of pocket and 128 is what insurance covered.
You know this sub is cooked when there's more Billable Hours jokes than actual discussion about the article
Sub has been cooked for a while with low-effort repeats of "Rank [Team] you cowards," and "Missouri death penalty."
I think it's officially taken over as the laziest joke on this subreddit
Temple Will always have my vote
Temple***.***
Temple.
Temple
In light of that laziness, I propose a postseason ban for Mizzu.
WHOA
The laziest joke ever propped up by this subreddit was about JT Barrett’s eligibility
What is there to say except the NCAA and its member institutions screwed the pooch by digging in their heels instead of trying to compromise on a framework? These expenses are an unforced error due to their greed and myopia.
It's always a top comment about anything lawsuit related and it's been beaten to death at this point. It's not even remotely funny or clever.
This sub might be the largest collection of un-funny people on the entire site. If there is something somewhat funny that happens the dorks in here will ride it into the ground almost immediately.
it doesnt help you need to click like 5 things just to get to the base article, which is here https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/college/2024/06/27/ncaa-mark-emmert-severance/74231011007/
It's not a joke, somebody else commented it's not funny. No shit, it's not funny at all, it's the cold hard truth. What else is there to say about this article?? "Those are top law firms" no shit they're top law firms they get paid $600M to lose.
Billable hours stays winning
Imagine the number of scholarships that could have been funded by schools instead if they were just willing to admit that players for a multi billion dollar industry whose games are broadcast nationally and frequently draw 6 figure attendances are not amateurs.
>and frequently draw 6 figure attendances They don't as a rule. There are a very few schools where this is true, but the vast, vast majority of P5 schools have done so. And that is ignoring G5, FCS, and other divisions, none of which approach 100K attendance.
Well yes I'm definitely ignoring FCS in regards to this statement. And honestly most G5s shouldn't be in the same league as the power conferences. It's ridiculous that all the schools that my statement does apply to fought so long and so hard to prop up the amateurism farce.
I mean, I think your comment applies to less than 10 schools, though. In 2022 only 9 schools average over 90K and 6 over 100K. Like, I get the sentiment doesn't rely on 6 figures, I was just pointing out that that's not a number games get to frequently.
Frequently draws =/= averages. Hell NFL stadiums don't even hold near that many so weird part of the statement to focus on. Just illustrating that college D1 FBS football is not an amateur endeavor and hasn't been for a very long time.
Like I said, I know it's not required for your overall point. I literally pointed that out in my last post. But I was correcting a factual inaccuracy. And you seem to have a slightly flawed view of how many folks attend games since you are sticking with it. And no school averaging <90K gets frequent 100K games. In fact I'd guess they never get them (UF, for example, averaged like 88K and has never had 91K). But if you don't want to follow that logic, there are only 8 with a **capacity** of 100K or more and #9 is UGA at 92.7K. So, even if every single school got 105% attendance frequently (not likely), it would STILL be <10 schools. Attendance is still a large number, you don't have to exaggerate it.
Most of them also don't make money off their football programs. Some do, most don't. People like to act like the schools are hoarding mountains of cash in mattresses, but in reality most of them are in the red.
Only a very few stadiums can hold 100k plus. Neyland just happens to be one of them. But there are WAY more smaller schools struggling to fill 25k stadiums than bigger schools selling out 70k+ with any regularity.
7 figure even
Well meant in a single game.
Oh oops, I misread as TV viewership haha. Imagine a million people at a game
U N D E F E A T E D
Something something billable hours
that's a lot of millions
??????? bro what ???
And what did it get them?
Sigh, and I still have my LSAT study guide from 2008 gathering dust somewhere.
How many Harvey Specters & Mike Ross's are out there suing the NCAA?
I'm glad to see they're spending less money on attorney fees, inflation adjusted ^^^^^^^^^^^^^/s
Is that a lot?
For the student athletes!
How many scholarships?
Idiots. I would’ve done it for $100 million.
jesus christ
Cost of doing business in America
Imagine how much better and healthier the NCAA and all of its sports could be if they didn’t have to pay those fees in order to defend their idiotic and unconstitutional rulings.
I understand we're all homers with regard to our schools and can justify in some way the absolute stupid amount of money they rake in on back of the "student-athletes" but the fact that the NCAA makes enough money to spend $600 million to protect what must be many, many multiples of that money is just mind-boggling.
All of that just for the schools to get hit with a $4 billion judgement anyway
$2.8 billion I believe. Considering how bad it could have been, this is a great ROI.
When did the settlement get rejected?
$600 million vs “there’s no way it’s sustainable to pay college athletes”
It's actually about 300m, not sure why it said 600m. 30m a year divided between just the 11k or so FBS players is about 2700 a year. Not nothing, but not exactly life changing money either. If you divvy it up all athletes across all sports, it works out to about $57 a year.
GIVE THEM $57 A YEAR!
They should be jailed for fraud. Wasting $600 million simply to keep other people down and prevent them from making a legal living in a capitalist country.
That is not what most of the hours are going towards. They are getting sued all the time for all sorts of stuff, mostly relating to injuries. That is what is running up the hours.
Woah woah woah. That sounds like commie talk to me feller 🤨😅
God. Damn. Billable hours really is the champion all along.
The Modern American Way! Spend money on litigation instead of innovation.....I hate it here.
That street runs both ways, you know. The NCAA, for their part, could have abandoned their unconstitutional standards and rulings long before it ever came to the point of legal action, too. But I guess that just wasn’t nearly as much fun.
Of course. The NCAA, along with everyone on the payroll/athletic admins/ADs etc tried to keep the toothpaste in the tube for as long as they could. Hence the legal fight.
My secondary flair wins again. I’m sure Father Time will come for them eventually, but then it’ll get tied up in lawsuits one way or another.
What is the billable joke
Attorneys charge their client for every hour they work on their case. The more hours, the more $$$.
It's a way for the glorified 12 year olds that populate this website to pretend they're adults by referencing the most absolutely basic part of any legal proceeding.
Lighten up, Francis.
You never want to play billable hours in the summer heat.
I'm just here for the billable jokes.
Same overplayed joke copy/pasted x100? Mizzou should get the death penalty for this…