Jodi S. Balsam

Biography

Jodi S. Balsam is Professor of Clinical Law and Director of Externship Programs at Brooklyn Law School. She designs the curriculum, oversees the faculty, and teaches some of the corequisite seminars that support the 450 students enrolled each year in civil practice, criminal practice, and judicial externships.

Professor Balsam is also a nationally recognized expert on Sports Law and teaches the course at both BLS and NYU School of Law, using the leading casebook that she co-authors—Weiler Sports and the Law. She has also taught Sports Law at New York Law School and Bucerius Law School in Hamburg, Germany. At BLS, she directs and teaches 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.

A contributor to the sports law scholarly community, Professor Balsam serves on the editorial boards of Law360 Sports and Betting, the Journal of Legal Aspects of Sport, and the international sports law blog LawInSport. Frequently quoted in the media on sports law developments, she is the on-air legal analyst for NBC Sports/The Golf Channel. She is a past-chair and current executive committee member of the Association of American Law Schools’ Section on Law and Sports. Professor Balsam has also served as an arbitrator on the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s Independent Resolution Panel, hearing 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.

Previously she was a litigation attorney with Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP, representing primarily 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 Judge Charles Brieant of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. She also served as Counsel to the Clerk of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals and spearheaded the court’s project to comprehensively revise its local rules and internal operating procedures. She currently sits on the Court’s Attorney Advisory Committee on Local Rules.