Super Bowl LIX Ref Draws on Law Training to Make Big Game Calls

Super Bowl LIX in New Orleans will kick off Sunday night with a Harvard Law School graduate and former Big Law partner in the middle of the action.

Referee Ronald Torbert is a former equity partner at Dykema Gossett, as well as general counsel for AlliedSignal Automotive and construction company Barton Malow. Torbert, who worked out of Dykema’s offices in Detroit and Lansing, Michigan, is set to take the field for his second Super Bowl.

Dykema CEO Leonard Wolfe called his ex-colleague—who retired from practicing law in 2019—a “proud part” of the firm’s legacy and a “star” trial lawyer. “Ron consistently demonstrated a level of knowledge and excellence that led to a successful legal career,” Wolfe said. “He also was a clear leader, as involved in the business of the firm as he was with individual lawyers learning their craft.”

Torbert’s Big Law accomplishments were followed by distinction on the gridiron. He spent two decades calling high school and college football games before joining the NFL as a side judge in 2010. Torbert was promoted to referee—a role requiring a unique blend of mental and physical fitness—four years later. He told Harvard Magazine in 2022 that he still relies on his legal training.

“Being a lawyer has helped me to be a better official,” Torbert said. “In both fields, you take in information, apply rules and the philosophy behind them, and reach a decision.”

Attorney Expertise

Torbert is part of a dwindling breed—lawyers who moonlight as NFL officials. Within the past few years, a half-dozen attorneys have left the league’s officiating ranks, mostly due to retirements. Torbert’s reputation as one of the best referees in the game has him heading a seven-person officiating crew for a Super Bowl rematch between the Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles.

“Ron is well-deserving of this assignment. He is a true professional,” said Clete Blakeman, a fellow NFL referee and name partner at Omaha-based personal injury law firm Carlson & Blakeman. “Always the man who is calm, cool, and collected. I have no doubt that he will take care of business on Sunday.”

Blakeman has also refereed the NFL’s signature event and handled last month’s AFC Championship game. He and Torbert are two of only three lawyers among the league’s 17 officiating crews. L. Jeffrey Rice, a former managing partner of Florida’s Goldstein, Buckley, Cechman, Rice & Purtz who retired in 2020 after 25 years as an NFL umpire, confirmed that number from a directory of 138 active officials. The league’s officials, who work part-time, hold a variety of other jobs, including auditors, financial advisers, insurance agents, investors, nonprofit executives, professors, and sales managers.

The on-field responsibilities of an NFL officiating crew are divided among a referee, umpire, and down, field, line, side, and back judges. Rice said the NFL also has a replay official and an assistant in the booth during games. That duo is supplemented at the Super Bowl by two to three supervisors from the league’s New York headquarters who will be on site in case any issues arise, said Rice, who worked four Super Bowls during his officiating career.

“Communication between the crew members, replay official, and supervisors is magnified in this game,” Rice said. While he never worked with Torbert, Rice says he watched him develop and heard good things from other league officials. “He is intense, has a good pre-game ritual, and excellent demeanor,” Rice said.

Rice said attorneys have an advantage over other professionals serving as NFL officials in that they’re used to thinking “quickly on our feet.” That skill helps when reacting to complicated situations on the field. Rice said lawyer-referees like Torbert are known as “rules-men,” with other officials in a crew often looking to their leader to advise them on a “correct ruling or interpretation.”

One of the longest-serving NFL referees was Edward Hochuli, a founding partner of Phoenix-based Jones, Skelton & Hochuli whose side gig in the league—along with his bulging biceps and well-articulated explanations—made him a household name. Hochuli retired in 2018. His son, Shawn, is now an NFL referee.

Torbert, Blakeman, and replay official Rodney “Roddy” Ames Jr., a director of risk management and corporate counsel at Milwaukee-based property manager Mandel Group Inc., are the league’s current lawyer-officials. Ames was the replay official for Super Bowl LVI in 2022, a game that Torbert refereed.

Fan Fiction

Torbert declined to discuss his role in Super Bowl LIX, but the NFL’s media arm provided some videotaped comments from him.

“Officials are the guardians of the game,” Torbert said. “We make sure that the game is safe, we keep the game fair, and we keep the game moving. We take that responsibility very seriously.” Torbert said officials want to “stay in the background” and let “great” coaches, players, and teams “decide the outcome of a game by their actions, as long as those actions are within the rules.”

That duty has come under scrutiny. The NFL Referees Association, a union representing officials, in a Feb. 4 statement derided what it called “insulting and preposterous” conspiratorial claims of pro-Chiefs bias levied against its members. Torbert is the union’s secretary and has been a stalwart defender of his brethren, said attorney and municipal judge Joseph Larrew, who like Torbert served on the union’s board and spent two decades as an NFL official.

Larrew, a partner at Missouri’s Hammond & Shinners who worked the last Super Bowl in New Orleans before retiring in 2022, was a liaison to all side judges—Torbert’s role at the time—during an NFL lockout of officials in 2012. Larrew said Torbert had an active role in the discussions that ended the labor impasse.

Torbert, in remarks distributed by the league, credited supportive family members, “talented crewmates,” and mentors who “taught me valuable lessons” for getting him to where he is today. “I love the game of football,” he said.