NBA Players Union Labor Spending Boost Aids Law Firms

Winston & Strawn and Dechert reaped the benefits of a nearly 17% increase in the NBA players’ union’s legal spending, most of which was for labor-related issues.

The New York-based union paid more than $1.4 million for outside legal help in the year ending Sept. 30, up from roughly $1.2 million in the prior year, according to a financial statement it filed this week with the US Labor Department.

Winston & Strawn and Dechert, which have been top firms for the union in recent years, received about $629,300 and $311,200, respectively, the statement said.

The National Basketball Players Association legal spending has been rising after it fell to a pandemic low of $1 million in fiscal 2020. The spending, however, still falls short of the nearly $2 million the NBPA doled out to firms during fiscal 2019.

The NBA and union announced Dec. 14 that they postponed an opt-out deadline for their current collective bargaining agreement to Feb. 8, 2023. Both sides said they made the decision made due to “ongoing efforts to reach a new agreement.”

Other firms on the union’s outside counsel payroll in the past fiscal year were Washington’s Groom Law Group at $225,200; Syracuse, NY-based Blitman & King, $53,000; Davis + Gilbert, $51,800; Willkie Farr & Gallagher, $48,400; Squire Patton Boggs, $42,300; Arent Fox, $28,200; and Cohen, Weiss and Simon, $15,500.

The fiscal year was the union’s first under executive director Tamika Tremaglio, an attorney and forensic accountant who took over in January 2022 as head of the NBPA. She received almost $1.8 million in total compensation from the union.

Tremaglio’s now-retired predecessor, Michele Roberts, a former litigation partner at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom in Washington, earned almost $1.5 million.

The NBPA paid more than $660,000 to Ronald Klempner, the union’s top labor lawyer, who was promoted to general counsel in April.

Klempner succeeded the NBPA’s former legal chief, Clarence Nesbitt Jr., who received about $746,400 ahead of being named the top lawyer for Think450, the union’s for-profit licensing and business development arm.

Joi Garner, another former general counsel for the NBPA who left the union in late 2021 to become legal chief for the New York Racing Association Inc., was paid roughly $189,500.

Other attorneys on the NBPA’s in-house staff are deputy general counsel David Foster, associate counsel Kirk Berger, and counsel Sam Burum, who was hired in September from Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment LLC.

A separate Labor Department filing by a union representing players in the WNBA, a women’s professional league supported by the NBA, NBPA, and other investors, shows it paid almost $150,000 this year to Michael Goldsholl, its director of operations for business and legal affairs.