Jodi Balsam

Professor of Clinical Law and Director of Externship Programs, Brooklyn Law School

Jodi S. Balsam is Professor of Clinical Law and Director of Externship Programs at Brooklyn Law School, where she teaches Sports Law, directs NYC’s only specialized sports law externship program, and serves as faculty advisor to the Brooklyn Entertainment and Sports Law Society and Brooklyn Sports and Entertainment Law Blog.  Professor Balsam also teaches the Sports Law course at NYU School of Law, and has taught the subject at New York Law School and Bucerius Law School in Hamburg, Germany.  She writes and speaks on sports law topics, including as co-author of Weiler Roberts’ Sports and the Law, a leading law school casebook in the field.  She is on the editorial boards of the Journal of Legal Aspects of Sport and the international sports law blog LawInSport.  She is a past-chair and current executive committee member of the Association of American Law Schools’ Section on Law and Sports, and serves on the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s Independent Resolution Panel, which hears complex infractions cases that implicate college athletics’ core values.

Before joining academia, Professor Balsam was the National Football League's Counsel for Operations and Litigation, where she managed litigation in all areas of law, oversaw a variety of policy and operational matters, negotiated and drafted contracts for League special events including the Super Bowl, and administered the League's internal dispute resolution processes and compliance program.  Prior to the NFL she was a litigator with Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, where she represented sports and entertainment clients in antitrust matters and complex commercial litigation.  She served as a law clerk for Judge Dennis Jacobs of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and for Judge Charles Brieant of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.  A graduate of Yale College, Professor Balsam received her law degree from NYU School of Law.