Norton Rose Partner’s Daughter Crystal Dunn a World Cup Winner

When corporate finance lawyer Vincent Dunn and his wife, Rhonda, moved to Long Island more than two decades ago, they did not anticipate that their daughter, Crystal, would grow up to be a World Cup winner.

“We didn’t know that the town of Rockville Centre had a strong soccer program when we moved there when Crystal was two years old. The program has won many state championships,” said Dunn, at Norton Rose Fulbright where he is co-partner in charge of the New York office.

“Growing up in Queens, we played handball. We didn’t know much about soccer,” he said. “I’m a golfer but there were years when every Saturday and Sunday, we were going to baseball and soccer games and practices.”

Work meant that Dunn saw little of his children during the week and weekends were time spent taking their son, a baseball player, and Crystal to sports activities.

Crystal later made the U.S. women’s national soccer team which won the World Cup on July 7. The Dunns went to France for four weeks to support Crystal, who turned 27 a few days before the cup final.

She and her teammates though still are looking for another victory. In March, they filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Soccer Federation seeking pay that is equal to what men earn on the men’s team.

The women’s team law firm, Winston & Strawn, said the lawsuit is seeking to eliminate gender-based discrimination, and the women’s team fans have cheered them on, chanting “equal pay” at the World Cup games and during the July 10 parade in New York City.