December 23, 2009 3:54 PM

The George Kokinis Chronicles: A Disgruntled Look at Sports and the Law

Posted by Brian Baxter

The Cleveland Browns have been a disaster both on and off the field this season, and while the team sought to usher in a new era by hiring Mike Holmgren as its new general manager this week, an arbitration claim by his predecessor, George Kokinis, will weigh over the star-crossed franchise in the months ahead.

After signing a four-year contract before the season, Kokinis was fired on November 2, with the Browns floundering on several fronts. But after the team refused to honor his contract, Kokinis got litigious, hiring Dewey & LeBoeuf global litigation cochair Jeffrey Kessler for an arbitration claim filed this week before NFL commissioner Roger Goodell. (A provision in Kokinis' contract calls for disputes between him and his employer to go to arbitration.)

Kessler, no stranger to sports litigation battles, especially in football, says that Kokinis turned to him after consulting with a few NFL colleagues. Kessler expects the arbitration proceeding to occur sometime in the next few months at the NFL's corporate legal department in New York. Current NFL general counsel Jeffrey Pash, a former Covington & Burling partner, or former league GC Jay Moyer will likely hear the case, Kessler says.

Kokinis is seeking more than $4 million in compensation and damages from the team. Kessler says his legal adversary in the arbitration is still a bit up in the air. The Browns have long turned to Frederick Nance, the managing partner of Squire, Sanders & Dempsey's Cleveland office, for outside counsel. Nance was advising the Browns early in the process, Kessler says, but earlier this month he was named the team's general counsel.

Nance is remaining at the firm despite taking on the additional GC role and Kessler says it's likely he'll continue advising the Browns in the Kokinis matter. Nance was not immediately available for comment.

SEC Sacks Heisman Sponsor

On Tuesday the SEC--the regulator, not the conference--sued an Austin-based investment firm that cosponsors the Heisman Trophy Trust, the annual award given to college football's most outstanding player.

According to the SEC's complaint filed in federal court in Austin, Triton Financial and its CEO, Kurt Barton, defrauded investors by misusing funds raised for an insurance venture. The complaint states that Triton sought to leverage its ties to professional athletes--former Heisman Trophy winner Chris Weinke and NFL quarterback Jeff Blake were once employed by the firm--to raise $50 million that it later allocated for different purposes without informing investors.

The Austin American-Statesman reports that Triton's alleged conduct is the subject of a civil suit filed in state court in Texas earlier this year. Plaintiffs lawyer Bill Ikard from Austin's Ikard Wynne is seeking class action certification for roughly 300 investors. (Ikard's firm was involved in a dispute over $4 million in fees from another class action settlement in September.)

The Dallas Morning News reports that Triton is being advised by Eric Taube from Austin's Hohmann, Taube & Summers. Austin solo practitioner Joseph Turner is representing Barton. Turner told the Morning News in a statement that his client intends to work closely with a receiver appointed to track down investor money. A phone line for Triton's Austin offices was disconnected on Wednesday.

SEC lawyers in Fort Worth were not immediately available for comment.

His Airness Dunks Grocers

Always a ferocious competitor on the basketball court, Michael Jordan apparently didn't take too kindly to two grocery retailers congratulating the former Chicago Bulls star on his induction into the Basketball Hall of Fame in September.

Rival Chicago-based supermarket chains Jewel-Osco and Dominick's took out two full-page advertisements in a commemorative issue of Sports Illustrated dedicated to Jordan earlier this year.

On Monday, Jordan filed suit against both companies in state court in Chicago, claiming they crafted the ads as an end-around to use his likeness to push their products. Jordan seeks unspecified damages, attorneys' fees, and a court order barring both grocery chains from using his name in future ads.

Jordan's longtime lawyer, Schiff Hardin's Frederick Sperling, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A bio of Sperling on the firm's Web site shows an impressive array of litigation victories for Jordan. But it still doesn't compare to six championships.

Delaware Gambles Again

In September, our colleague Zach Lowe reported on the U.S. Court of Appeal for the Third Circuit's decision to strike down Delaware's plan for a state-sponsored gambling lottery with the requisite sports book.

The plan received fierce opposition from the NFL, which was joined by the three other major North American professional sports leagues and the NCAA in taking the case all the way to the Third Circuit in a little less than two months. The appellate ruling was a big win for Kenneth Nachbar of Delaware's Morris, Nichols, Arsht & Tunnell, who, as Lowe reported, was handed the case because the NFL's regular outside counsel at Covington & Burling were busy on other league matters.

At the time, Delaware Governor Jack Markell's legal counsel Michael Barlow (a Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom alum) indicated that the state wouldn't appeal the Third Circuit's ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court. But now Delaware is asking for more time.

In a Third Circuit filing on Friday, the state requested a 60-day extension until late February 2010 to file a cert petition with the Supreme Court. The filing also shows that the state, which has also been advised by Delaware firms Bouchard Margules & Friedlander and Richards, Layton & Finger, had added another lawyer to its legal team.

Nancy Winkelman, appellate practice cochair at Philadelphia's Schnader Harrison Segal & Lewis and a lecturer at Pennsylvania Law School, is now on the case.

Around the Horn

-- When Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov bought a majority interest in the New Jersey Nets this fall, Hogan & Hartson and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett were there to make it happen. Now the Nets, who've set their sights on Brooklyn, are one step closer to that goal with the closing of the Atlantic Yards real estate project. Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson real estate partners Stephen Lefkowitz, Melanie Meyers, and Richard Leland, financing cochair Arthur Kaufman, and corporate partner Emil Buchman advised Forest City Ratner on the deal, which will allocate land for the Nets' new 18,000-seat arena, the Barclays Center.

-- The New York Mets have had little success in the free agent market this offseason, and now Bloomberg reports that the team is also unhappy with how Baker & Hostetler's Irving Picard, liquidating trustee for Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, will compensate victims of the con man. Mets owner Fred Wilpon faces potential clawback suits over a Mets entity that made $47.8 million in profits from the fraud. Davis Polk & Wardwell partner Karen Wagner, who once told The Wall Street Journal how she came to be a partner at the firm, argued for the team against Picard's method of evaluating victims' claims.

-- Not everyone is happy about a proposed new stadium in San Jose for the Oakland Athletics. A group of fans of a minor league team in the city has hired Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman to fight the stadium plan by arguing that the crosstown San Francisco Giants own the territorial rights to the San Jose area.

-- Los Angeles entertainment litigation boutique Lavely & Singer has been busy this holiday season. The firm is representing an L.A. tax lawyer who plead guilty to tax evasion earlier this month in a related civil suit, and the firm recently made headlines for its role representing a celebrity couple embroiled in a legal battle over a McSteamy video leaked by Gawker Media. This week the firm's role in structuring an alleged secret agreement between client Tiger Woods and the publisher of Men's Fitness two years ago was profiled in a WSJ story. Golf Digest suspended Woods' monthly column on Wednesday.

-- And finally, when Cuban pitching prospect Aroldis Chapman defected in July, a slew of teams were expected to start a bidding war for his services. Instead a legal battle has broken out between two competing sports agencies seeking to represent Chapman. Courthouse News reports that Greenberg Traurig comanaging partner Gary Greenberg is representing Athletes Premier in a suit filed against Hendricks Sports Management in state court in Boston last week. The suit accuses Hendricks of paying bribes to Chapman to poach him as a client.

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