US Soccer Federation Pays $9.2 Million to K&S, Morgan Lewis

The US Soccer Federation paid more than $9.2 million to two large law firms during its most recent fiscal year, according to a new financial statement.

King & Spalding received nearly $7.3 million in the one-year period between April 1, 2022, and March 31, 2023, while Morgan, Lewis & Bockius was paid almost $2 million, per the nonprofit’s annual Form 990 filing. The document didn’t disclose details for either legal expense, but Morgan Lewis has been a longtime adviser to the federation on labor and employment matters.

The Chicago-based federation retained King & Spalding and partner Sally Yates, a former acting US attorney general now serving as head of the firm’s crisis management practice, to lead an all-women team that conducted a year-long internal investigation into allegations of sexual abuse and misconduct in women’s professional soccer. The federation cooperated with Yates’ team on a probe that culminated in October 2022 with the release of a 172-page report that found “systemic failures” hurting women’s players.

The inquiry also faulted some federation executives, such as former chief legal and compliance officer Lydia Wahlke, with ignoring or minimizing sex-related claims brought by players against certain coaches. The federation subsequently implemented an action plan to make professional soccer safer for women.

Provisions included crafting stronger compliance protocols and player safety standards that will gradually be expanded throughout the federation’s organizational hierarchy. Alison Kocoras, a former general counsel and director of human resources for the federation, last year took on the new role of vice president for “safeguarding response and welfare.”

The legal fees paid to King & Spalding and Morgan Lewis during 2022-23 were more than the nearly $6.4 million that Morgan Lewis and Latham & Watkins received in the prior fiscal year, one in which the federation agreed to a landmark $24 million settlement of a long-running pay bias lawsuit filed against the organization by US women’s national team players.

That dispute saw legal advisers for both the federation, which was represented in the litigation by Latham and in related collective bargaining negotiations by Morgan Lewis, and players rack up large legal bills.

Karen Leetzow, hired in 2020 to succeed Wahlke as the federation’s legal chief, earned more than $528,000 in total compensation last year. Leetzow left in December to become president of the Chicago Red Stars, a team in the National Women’s Soccer League. A spokesman for the federation, whose general counsel is Gregory Fike, said it’s interviewing for Leetzow’s successor.

The federation hired another attorney last year in new chief external relations officer Rahul Chandhok, who spent the past decade in public and government affairs roles with the National Football League’s San Francisco 49ers.

The federation also recently posted a job opening for a corporate counsel. This month corporate counsel Kevin Qiao left the organization for a similar position with Major League Baseball’s Chicago Cubs after the federation recruited him in-house last summer from Weil, Gotshal & Manges.

Earlier this month the federation’s national council voted at its annual meeting in Dallas to award a $150,000 yearly stipend to Cindy Parlow Cone, a former player who was named the organization’s president in 2020 amid fallout from the pay equity litigation. Parlow Cone’s position had previously been unpaid.