Baseball’s Giants Tap Law Head to Lead New Focus on Real Estate

After more than three decades as the top lawyer for Major League Baseball’s San Francisco Giants, longtime legal chief John “Jack” Bair is putting on a different cap—but will remain in the C-suite for the same team.

Bair’s new role as chief development officer for the Giants will see him take the lead on a $1.5 billion real estate project that will include the headquarters of financial services giant Visa Inc.

The Giants are part of a growing trend of professional sports teams to expand their business base, with a 28-acre mixed-use development called Mission Rock evolving across from Oracle Park, the club’s scenic 41,300-seat home field overlooking San Francisco Bay. Mission Rock is one of several neighborhoods under construction around American ballparks.

Amy Tovar, a former Big Law litigator hired by the Giants in 2015, has taken over as the team’s top lawyer. Bair, who will still work on some legal matters, called Tovar a “natural choice” to succeed him.

Running the law department for a franchise like the Giants is “unique” in that it often involves much of the same corporate work one would handle for a company, except there’s an additional “fun and unifying element” in that most staffers are also fans, said Bair, who was raised in nearby San Mateo, Calif.

San Mateo was also where another lawyer important to Giants history, William “Bill” Neukom, grew up. Neukom, a former partner at a predecessor to K&L Gates, a law firm with close ties to Microsoft Corp., also was the first general counsel for that company. Neukom reportedly owned more than $100 million in Microsoft stock by the time he left in 2001, having been a key architect of its antitrust defenses. He put some of that money into investing in the Giants.

Neukom, who died in July at 83, was managing general partner for the team when it won the 2010 World Series. Neukom retired from club leadership in 2011 and the Giants would win the World Series again in 2012 and 2014.

Bair, who joined the Giants in 1993, said his former boss could’ve easily got rid of him and brought in his own in-house counsel when he joined the team’s ownership. Instead, Bair said Neukom was “deliberative and thoughtful” in getting to know and evaluate those working for the club.

“The disciplined way he made decisions definitely had a lawyerly bent to it, which was very familiar to me,” said Bair about Neukom. “He didn’t want to know what your advice or recommendation was; he wanted to understand why and probe how you came up with it. He brought a rigor to the organization.”

Legal Lineup

The Giants are now led on the legal field by Tovar, a former associate at Munger, Tolles & Olson who joined the team after working in the Obama administration. Tovar has held several titles since coming aboard a decade ago, but said communication has been key throughout her tenure.

Sports teams often employ a lot of young individuals, many of whom have had little exposure to the legal profession, so being able to “translate” often complex legal issues is crucial, Tovar said. “You have to work with different departments and people with diverse skill-sets and backgrounds,” she added.

Navigating the future of media rights agreements—from streaming to the financial troubles facing some regional sports networks—is another component of Tovar’s job that she expects will keep her busy. Her promotion with the Giants, which wasn’t announced publicly, occurred shortly before the team completed a trade in June for Boston Red Sox star Rafael Devers.

While Tovar and Bair didn’t have a hand in that deal—player contracts tend to be templated with little need for in-house legal input—they have worked on other big moves by the Giants. Before the start of the 2025 season the team sold a 10% stake to investment firm Sixth Street Partners LLC. Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman advised the Giants, while Latham & Watkins represented Sixth Street.

Bair said the Giants have also used Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton; Littler Mendelson; and San Francisco’s Coblentz Patch Duffy & Bass for outside counsel. Tovar said the team, which employs a deputy general counsel in Matthew Valdez, may look to add another in-house attorney in the coming months to help offset Bair’s switch to the business side.