Alicia jessop
Institute for entertainment, media, sports, & culture

Alicia Jessop is an Associate Professor at Pepperdine University, where she is an Academic Director for the Institute for Entertainment, Media, Sports and Culture. Professor Jessop is a sport industry leader, attorney, journalist, founder of sport business website RulingSports.com and professor focused on promoting athlete, creator, consumer well-being, and women's leadership in sports and entertainment industries.  In addition, she has first-hand experience building programs and strategies to empower athletes, working with individual professional athletes to develop their legal and personal branding strategies. 

Cassie McBride
San Jose Sharks

Cassie McBride, California Western School of Law alumna, currently works as the Vice President and General Counsel of the National Hockey League’s San Jose Sharks, San Jose Barracuda, SAP Center and Sharks Ice Facility. In 2018 she was named California Western’s Rising Star. Her experience includes working as General Counsel of the Jacksonville Jaguars, Bold Events, and All Elite Wrestling, and as Associate Counsel for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.  Ms. McBride also serves as Vice Chair of the Association of Corporate Counsel’s Sports & Entertainment Network. With her experience, Ms. McBride created a consulting agency known as Sypsie Tech where she serves as the Co-Founder & President of web development.

Caroline Perry
San Diego Padres

Caroline Perry is the Senior Vice President, Business Administration and General Counsel at the San Diego Padres, where she oversees the Padres’ accounting department, legal department, and public affairs. Ms. Perry has worked with the Padres since April 2011. Prior to joining the Padres, Ms. Perry worked as a corporate attorney for Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP in the Bay Area and Cravath Swaine & Moore LLP in New York, where she worked in corporate finance. Ms. Perry earned her law degree from Columbia University, where she was a James Kent scholar and managing editor of the Columbia Business Law Review. 

David Cohen
Major League Business, LLC

David Cohen, California Western School of Law alumni, is both the founder and CEO of Major League Business LLC, as well as general counsel for Tempus Ex Machina. Mr. Cohen was also Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ General Counsel for five years. He has dedicated his work to aiding individuals and companies within the sports industry. His commitment and enthusiasm for his work has earned Mr. Cohen a place as a 2015 inductee of the West Virginia University College of Physical Activity and Sport Sciences Hall of Fame, and the title of “Top 10-Thirty-Something In-House Counsel” in 2013.

Roger Quiles
Quiles Law

Roger Quiles is one of the world’s first esports attorneys. He started his own law practice, Quiles Law, in 2012. As a pioneer of esports law, he has serviced an international clientele of esports teams, players, tournament providers, athletes, media companies and businesses that operate in the esports space. Mr. Quiles also serves on several boards, including the Board of Advisors for Marquette University School of Law, National Sports Law Institute. Numerous forums have featured Mr. Quiles, including ESPN. Mr. Quiles also published the Little Legal Handbook for Esports Teams, which remains one of the few, if not the only, compiled legal resources for esports teams.

Jodi S. Balsam
Brooklyn Law School & NYU School of law

Jodi Balsam is an associate professor of Clinical Law and the Director of the Externship Program at Brooklyn Law School. She is also an adjunct professor of sports law at NYU School of Law and NYU Tisch Institute for Sports Management, Media, and Business. Her teaching interests are sports law, professional responsibility, negotiation, and other lawyering skills. She graduated from Yale University with a B.A. in History and a J.D. from the NYU School of Law. Before academia, she worked as counsel for the National Football League, managing litigation in all areas of law, overseeing policy and operational matters, administering the internal dispute resolution processes and compliance program, and drafting contracts for League special events including the Super Bowl.

Zack Bowersox
Washington University of Saint Louis

Zack Bowersox is a human rights scholar whose main focus is human trafficking. Since earning his doctorate at the University of Missouri, Columbia, in 2016, he has taught at Emory University, the University of Georgia, and Columbia College. He is the author of International Sporting Events and Human Rights: Does the Host Nation Play Fair? (2018, Lexington Books) and has recently published articles in the Journal of Human Trafficking and International Migration.

Steven A. Bank
University of California, Los Angeles school of Law

Steven Bank is the Paul Hastings Professor of Business Law at UCLA School of Law, where his primary areas of focus are business, tax, and sports law.  In the sports arena, Professor Bank regularly teaches International and Comparative Sports Law and a seminar on Law, Lawyering, and the Beautiful Game.  He has published extensively in the fields of corporate governance, business taxation, and soccer law, where he is a frequent commentator on issues relating to the governance, operation, and dispute resolution involving FIFA, the United States Soccer Federation, and professional soccer leagues and clubs here and abroad.

Jeff A. Todd
Texas State University

Jeffery Todd is an associate professor of business law in the Department of Finance and Economics at Texas State University. Professor Todd earned his J.D. with honors from the University of Texas and a Ph.D. in English from Texas A&M University, where he was a Lechner Fellow. Prior to academia, he practiced transnational litigation at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, LLP after clerking at the Supreme Court of Texas. His research involves interdisciplinary approaches to his practice areas of transnational litigation and torts, including articles about international soccer and about the admissibility of economics expert testimony.

Todd Jewell
Texas State University

Dr. Todd Jewell is a professor for the Department of Finance and Economics and a former Associate Dean of the McCoy College of Business at Texas State University. Dr. Jewell received his BA in Economics at Pepperdine University and his MA and Ph.D. in Economics at University of California-Santa Barbara. His research and publications focus extensively on International Industrial and Labor Relations, Health Economics, and Sport Finance and Economics.