Former Weil, Proskauer Partners Helped Save Baseball Season

Major League Baseball players relied on a team of lawyers led by Bruce Meyer, a former labor litigation partner at Weil, Gotshal & Manges, to salvage the full 2022 season after a lockout.

Meyer, senior director for collective bargaining and legal for the Major League Baseball Players Association, managed an in-house team of six lawyers that advised union head Tony Clark in reaching the March 10 deal with league owners to end the 99-day lockout.

Daniel Halem, a former Proskauer Rose partner, took the lead for management as each side achieved some of what they were seeking—better benefits for players and an expansion of postseason teams from 10 to 12 sought by owners and commissioner Robert Manfred Jr.

The behind-the-scenes legal jockeying during the lockout helped avoid a repeat of the labor strife of 1994, when a strike wiped out nearly a third of the season and the playoffs and World Series.

This time, there will only be a one-week delay to the start of the season and a three-day extension at the end to allow for a full 162-game schedule and a complete postseason. Both sides made concessions in a dispute that largely hinged on the league’s pay structure.

Taking the Lead

Meyer, who spent more than 30 years at Weil in New York and joined the MLB players union in 2018, confirmed in an email that in-house lawyers took the lead on the negotiations with the league.

He noted that outside counsel to the union was “not involved directly in any negotiations” on a new labor deal with the league, whose 30 team owners unanimously voted to ratify the five-year accord.

Meyer’s team included the union’s general counsel Ian Penny, deputy general counsel Matthew Nussbaum, and assistant general counsel Robert Lenaghan, Jeffrey Perconte and E. Hiram Arnaud.

Meyer and Penny both worked at different times for the National Hockey League Players Association prior to working for the baseball players. Meyer left Weil in 2016 to become the NHL union’s senior director for collective bargaining, policy, and legal.

Gregory Dreyfuss, a former assistant general counsel who was promoted in 2019 to serve as the MLB union’s director of analytics and baseball operations, was also part of the negotiating team, Meyer said.

Outside Counsel

Meyer previously led the same in-house team on a labor deal with the league in 2020 to play a shortened season that year due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The union, which will file its annual financial statement with the Labor Department later this month, each year employs roughly a dozen law firms to handle various labor- and litigation-related matters, as previously reported by Bloomberg Law.

Proskauer advised MLB management on its negotiations with players. A source briefed on the matter said that Neil Abramson, co-chair of the labor and employment law department at Proskauer, led a team from the firm advising MLB that also included labor litigation partner Adam Lupion.

Patrick Houlihan, the league’s deputy general counsel for labor relations, also worked closely with Halem and Proskauer in the collective bargaining talks.

Manfred, a former labor litigator at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, has been the league’s commissioner since 2015. Manfred was once outside counsel to MLB before going on to hold several different jobs in the New York-based league’s front office.

Opening Day is set for April 7.