Sidley, Winston Lead Legal Field for Baseball’s Growing Union

The Major League Baseball Players Association paid nearly $3.7 million to law firms and other external legal services providers last year, according to a newly filed financial statement.

Sidley Austin and Winston & Strawn, a pair of longtime legal advisers to the union, received the bulk of that sum by collective billing for almost $2.4 million. The MLBPA’s legal fees for fiscal 2022 are up slightly from the $3.5 million it paid out the year prior.

The union agreed last year to join the AFL-CIO, the largest federation of US labor organizations. It also expanded its own ranks through an effort to help unionize thousands of minor league ballplayers.

On March 31, the New York-based union announced that minor leaguers had “overwhelmingly” voted to approve the first-ever collective bargaining agreement with Major League Baseball.

Bruce Meyer, the MLBPA’s deputy executive director, led the union’s legal team on the deal, along with senior adviser Ian Penny, general counsel Matthew Nussbaum, deputy general counsel Jeffrey Perconte, and assistant general counsel Harrison “Harry” Marino, according to a source familiar with the deal.

The bargaining agreement dramatically increases minimum salaries and provides other new benefits to minor leaguers.

Susan Davis, a partner and chair of the management committee at labor-focused Cohen, Weiss & Simon, and Jenifer Cromwell, an employee benefits and tax partner at Washington’s Bredhoff & Kaiser, served as outside counsel to the union on the new minor league labor deal. The MLBPA paid about $375,700 to Cohen Weiss and $79,100 to Bredhoff & Kaiser last year, according to a March 31 filing with the Labor Department.

A related civil lawsuit filed by minor league players that settled last year after nearly a decade in court saw a $185 million agreement be finalized last week.

Legal Lineup

The union’s most recent financial disclosure details payments to roughly a dozen legal services providers.

The MLBPA paid more than $1.6 million to Sidley; $755,500 to Winston; $205,400 to San Francisco’s Altshuler Berzon; $194,400 to Jeff Fannell & Associates; and about $65,000 to Boston-based Hemenway & Barnes. Altshuler Berzon separately received almost $268,000 last year to represent the MLB Umpires Association, per a Feb. 21 filing with the Labor Department.

Other firms on the MLBPA’s payroll include Morrison & Foerster ($30,000); Pittsburgh’s Reisinger Comber & Miller ($25,000); and New Jersey’s Margolin & Neuner ($21,000). The union paid roughly $9,000 apiece to Zuckerman Spaeder and immigration shop Kurzban Kurzban Tetzeli & Pratt, as well as $6,000 to New York’s Friedman & Anspach.

Most of the firms have close ties to the union. Jeff Fannell is a former MLBPA in-house lawyer whose firm handles salary arbitration work. Margolin & Neuner’s founding partner Diane Margolin is the widow of the union’s former general counsel and executive director, Michael Weiner. Kurzban Kurzban worked on an agreement during the pandemic to play a shortened 2020 season.

Bloomberg Law reported last year on the MLBPA switching up its in-house legal leadership after securing a new collective bargaining agreement with the league to end a three-month player lockout.

Meyer, a former partner at Weil, Gotshal & Manges, was promoted to deputy executive director. The MLBPA also tapped Nussbaum to replace Penny as general counsel. Penny now serves as a senior adviser to the union’s executive director, former player Anthony “Tony” Clark.

Clark received nearly $2.3 million in total compensation last year. Meyer earned almost $1.4 million and Nussbaum nearly $904,000 in his first year as legal chief. Penny received roughly $931,600 and Perconte, who was elevated to deputy general counsel, about $644,000.

MLBPA’s historic inclusion of minor leaguers into its ranks last year also led the union to also absorb Marino, himself a former minor league ballplayer and one-time associate at Williams & Connolly in Washington. Marino was paid a little more than $69,000 after the MLBPA hired him in August.

Other Legal Expenses

Other in-house lawyers on staff include assistant general counsel Robert Guerra, Robert Lenaghan and Karenna Martin, as well as associate baseball operations counsel John “Jack” Sexton. Martin, a former law clerk for the MLBPA, rejoined the union last year after working as an associate at Friedman & Anspach.

Former MLBPA deputy general counsel Heather Chase has now taken a similar role at MLB Players Inc., the union’s for-profit arm, which in recent years has sought to build out its own legal staff.

The union’s filing also detailed nearly $117,500 in payments last year to Louis Melendez, a lawyer and former league executive who advises on salary arbitration and international play issues. OSKR LLC, a provider of economic analysis for complex litigation, was paid about $167,500 and Washington-based lobbying firm Elevate Government Affairs LLC received $112,600.

Also disclosed were nearly $218,000 in payments to arbitrators that preside over baseball’s unique form of dispute resolution. About $139,000 of those fees went to Martin Scheinman, an arbitrator who adjudicated a high-profile dispute between the league and pitcher Trevor Bauer.

Bauer, now playing in Japan, faced a two-year suspension after being accused of sexual assault. The Los Angeles Dodgers released him in January after that ban was reduced.

Bauer has retained Zuckerman Spaeder and other firms to sue media companies and his accuser. He has not been charged with a crime.